Snow Queen's Curse
by Dragonheart77
Summary: Months after the Thaw, Arendelle is prospering. But secrets are coming back to haunt the Arendelle sisters, and Elsa realizes quickly that she may have to face an enemy she never thought she would see turn on her: her own twin sister, who vanished at the age of sixteen. AU, movie/canon still compatible.
1. Chapter 1

**By popular demand {You mean, by one person's demand.} Yes, well... one of my favorite authors. Hush.**

 **All right, so only one person has asked, but I'm sure my IRL friends who like this will be happy too. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Flame.) Frozen fanfic, obviously. My second one. The first (a trilogy) will not be posted here, mostly because it is largely old writing and roughly one-fourth Flame's writing and frankly it's not my best fanfiction. This is better. How much better is questionable, but better. In any case, this is an AU, but the movie still happened exactly as in the canon-verse, other than possibly Do You Want to Build a Snowman involving Letha as well. Why it's still compatible with the canon-verse will be explained in the next chapter. {No, the third chapter.} Is it the third? Hm. We'll have to see how it breaks down. Anywho.  
**

 **Yes, this was inspired by the "Evil Elsa" fanart. Yes, this first scene was totally inspired by the piece _Child's Play_ on DeviantArt by tauwnycat. Full credit for that goes to the respective owner. Go look up the artwork, it's fantastic. Please note that I actually started writing this privately BEFORE that top comment, about the twin thing with Elsa and Evil Elsa, was posted, and it actually scared me with the similarities XD**

 **Without further ado, on to the story. Word count: 2,037**

* * *

" _Fear will be your enemy."_

~Grand Pabbie

"Elsa! Psst!"

A muffled snort from the figure in the bed, nothing more.

"Wake up, wake up, wake _up!_ " A small strawberry blonde girl scrambled up onto the bed, bouncing the bed while simultaneously shaking her older sister.

"Anna, shove off," the sleepy girl mumbled.

"Go back to sleep," a matching voice came from the bed a few feet away.

Anna flopped down on top of Elsa, eliciting a grunt from her sister. "But I just can't sleep! The sky's awake, so _I'm_ awake, so I _have_ to _play!_ "

"Go play by yourself," Elsa laughed, shoving the younger girl playfully off the bed.

Anna rolled over to sit upright on the floor, pouting a little. Then she clambered onto the other bed, only for a hand to immediately shoot out and push her back to the floor. "Letha!" she complained.

"Some of us want to sleep," the girl grumbled, her platinum hair gleaming as she buried her face in her pillow.

Anna sat on the floor and pouted for a few seconds, before she thought of something. Grinning slyly, she asked both sisters, "You wanna build a snowman?"

Slowly, both pairs of crystalline blue eyes turned to her, grins spreading over their faces.

The three bounded down the stairs, as fast as they could while still being quiet enough not to wake parents or staff. They pushed open the huge doors and Elsa and Anna ran out into the center of the empty ballroom, leaving Letha to close the doors again.

All need for stealth gone, Anna begged, "Do the magic! Do the magic!"

Elsa and Letha exchanged a glance and a smile. The twins were nearly identical, matching hair, eyes, and faces. If Letha were to pull her hair back into a neat braid, or Elsa to let her platinum locks flow loose, the two would be almost impossible to distinguish. "You ready?" Elsa asked Anna. She bounced in place with the enthusiasm behind her nod.

Elsa cupped her hands together and felt cold run through her veins, though it didn't bother her. Pale blue light emanated from her palms and a white ball of snow formed between her hands. She tossed it up into the air and it exploded, sending flurries of snow falling all over the room. Anna giggled and danced in place in the snowfall, absolutely delighted.

Letha, for her part, looked on with a tinge of envy. Her twin must have sensed this, because she looked over sympathetically and said, "Try it again, Lee! Maybe you'll get it this time!"

The girl nodded and slowly brought her hands together. She reached for the cold spot inside her that held the ice, but try as she might, she couldn't pull it free. She knew it was there, knew she was capable of the same things as Elsa, but she just couldn't seem to control it when she wanted to. Looking up, Letha spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "It won't come," she said simply.

Elsa nodded, understanding, and wrapped her chilled arms around her twin. Letha returned the embrace gratefully. "You'll get it," she promised. "I know you will."

Letha started to reply, but was interrupted by Anna's thrilled, "Wheeeeeee!" and the impact of her small body into the twins in a ferocious tackle hug. All three went sprawling in the snow, laughing.

Letha sat back and watched as Elsa and Anna started rolling snow up to make a snowman. After a moment, she fell back into herself, concentrating on the magic she could feel inside her. She flicked her fingers at the floor in front of her. "Come on," she muttered under her breath as blue sparks flew, but nothing more. She shook her hands again. More sparks, but no real result. "Come – on!"

Abruptly, her body flooded with cold. For a split second, Letha was thrilled by the rush of power, but then she realized that it was _so fast._ Too fast. She yelped as ice shot from her hands and spiked up off the floor, pointing away from her – toward her sisters. Panicking, she smothered the magic, stopping the flow and stopping the growth of the ice spikes, but also sending the delicate magic scurrying back to its hidden place locked up inside her.

Elsa and Anna were staring at her, a mixture of shock and concern in their faces. For a moment, the three just stared at each other. Then Letha made a small, hopeless sound and pulled her knees up to her chest, hiding her face behind them. Her eyes and throat stung with tears.

Elsa was the first to move. She crawled around the ice, through the snow, and wrapped her arms around her frigid sister. Even to Elsa, herself chilled by the magic, Letha felt cold. To Anna, who quickly scrambled around to Letha's other side and joined the group hug, it felt as if she was hugging a statue of ice. Still, the young girl stubbornly clung on, determined to help comfort her sister.

Letha lifted her face, revealing tear-stained cheeks. "I can't do this," she sobbed, turning her head to bury her face in Elsa's shoulder. "Every time I try, I just..." she trailed off and focused on crying.

Undaunted, Anna scuttled around so she could hug both of them as Elsa pulled Letha halfway onto her lap. Anna's young mind didn't fully understand why Letha was so upset – after all, she couldn't do magic at all, and it didn't upset _her_ too terribly – but she did know that her sister was upset, and she didn't like it one bit.

After a few minutes, Letha sat up again. "I'm okay," she said, and it seemed to be true – her face was clear again, and she could smile at Anna and Elsa without it seeming forced.

"Come play with us," Anna invited her, pulling her to her feet. Letha's skin had warmed where Anna and Elsa had been touching it, and was starting to warm up all over now again, back to a normal temperature. And play they did.

"Catch me!" Anna giggled, jumping up into the air. Elsa smiled and snow formed beneath the younger girl, fast enough to catch her and boost her upward. Jump after jump, pile after pile.

Despite her intentions, Letha found herself watching in envy and frustration. She tentatively tried for magic again, but this time no matter how she tried it refused to manifest itself. Feeling as if she was running herself into a wall repeatedly because she was too stupid or slow to find a way around or over it, she suddenly stamped one foot in irritation.

The ice on the floor beneath her jumped, and she almost lost her balance. A ripple passed through the ice in a wave, an impressive display considering her usual lack of proficiency with magic.

At the same moment, Elsa's foot slipped and she tripped over her own ankle as she turned. She might have recovered in time to catch Anna anyway, if it hadn't been for the ice that jumped beneath her as Letha's ripple of power passed beneath her at the worst possible moment. She slipped and fell. "Anna!"

Her magic flew anyway, desperately. But in the fall, her aim was thrown off, and the blast struck their younger sister, whose eyes rolled up in her head as she went limp, tumbling down the side of a snowbank.

"Anna," Elsa gasped, stumbling in her haste to get to the girl. She reached her just as white streaked through her hair, replacing a single lock of red. Finding Anna unconscious, Elsa cried out for the only people she could think might be able to help: "Mama! Papa!"

Fear flooded her voice, and ice flooded the room. Letha could do nothing but stare, frozen in place as the ice behind the doors cracked and they flew open, letting her mama and papa stumble into the room. "Elsa! What have you done?" their father demanded, seeing Anna. Despite his words, there was no anger in his voice – only concern and more of that strange thing Letha barely knew the word for: fear. "This has gone too far!"

"I'm sorry," Elsa choked, trying not to cry. "I-it was an accident! I'm sorry, Anna..."

 _Why aren't I crying, too?_

Their mother scooped Anna up and bit her lip. "She's ice cold," she gasped.

 _That might be the result of playing in snow for almost an hour with nothing but a nightgown and slippers on. Without powers._

Papa touched Anna's skin and said grimly, "I know where we need to go."

 _Why can't I feel anything? Except..._

 _I did this._

Letha still couldn't move. She stared at their parents, and at the sobbing Elsa, and at Anna, who was so terribly still.

 _I did this._

And with that realization, the first emotion that finally, belatedly, hit her... it wasn't grief, or remorse. It was something she'd never felt before. The guilt struck her only a heartbeat later, but for just a moment... Letha felt _powerful._ She knew it was wrong, knew it in her bones, but she couldn't push the feeling away. That feeling that she had never had before. She had done this, with her magic. Letha. The one who could never do anything with her powers when she wanted to.

At five years of age, Anna was having her first brush with death. At eight years of age, Elsa was having her first brush with fear. And at eight years of age, three minutes younger than her twin, Letha was having her first brush with the thing that would rule her life for a very long time: her lust for power.

* * *

"She'll be all right," Grand Pabbie promised, brushing his thumb over Anna's forehead gently. He had removed the ice from her head – as well as all memories of magic.

"But she won't remember we have powers?" Elsa asked, giving Letha a worried glance.

"It's for the best," Papa assured them.

Pabbie gestured Elsa forward. "Listen to me, Elsa. Your power will only grow." As he spread his hands, light danced, silhouetting a woman summoning magic, identical to Elsa's, right down to the tiny details no one ever noticed that differentiated her magic from her twin's. "There is beauty in your magic... but also great danger." The blue light shattered, turning to red, and rose up to threaten the representation of Elsa. "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy." With a sharp hissing cry, the red light swamped the figure. Elsa cried out in fear and buried her face in her papa's chest. He wrapped his arms around her protectively. Before he could speak, Pabbie turned to Letha.

The ancient troll examined her with wise eyes, and Letha knew he saw right through to her heart – right to the strange things she had felt at the moment she had realized her hand in Anna's being struck. He shifted and made a small "Hmm" in his throat as he looked at her. At last, he spoke again. "Letha. You too must be careful. Your powers are as beautiful, and as dangerous, as your sister's. They will become stronger."

"I can't start them anyway," she muttered under her breath. He shouldn't have heard her, but clearly he did, because he hmmed again.

"You will find that will change, I think," he said. "Listen to me when I say: you must learn to control yourself, or yours will be a terrible fate indeed. You know of what I speak." His eyes held hers until she finally nodded meekly. She knew exactly of what he spoke. Then she, too, retreated to the side of Elsa and the king.

As the king made his plans to close up the castle, Letha hardly listened. She knew already that she would not stay in her room. There was no point, since she couldn't use her power anyway, not without trying very hard indeed.

She also knew that these next few years would be very interesting indeed. The lives of everyone in that castle were about to change forever, herself included. But maybe... maybe she could learn more about her magic. Maybe this was her chance.

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 **Follows? Favorites? Reviews are the best! 3 Thank y'all for reading! See you next time.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Updates on this are going to be pretty fast for the moment, since large amounts of this are already pre-written. There will no doubt eventually be a point where I hit the end of what's already been written, at which time updates will slow down considerably (especially if I'm still in Drama at that point). I apologize for that, but there's not much to be done about it. Basically, enjoy the fast updates while you can XD**

 **The title of this will soon be changing to _Snow Queen's Curse_ ; the next time I update a chapter, this change will take effect. Fair warning, so you can find it again if you lose it somehow. There is a good reason behind this change, which you'll find out in later chapters ;3 Speculation, of course, is welcome!**

 **Word count: 3,428**

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Over the next few years, life in the castle was very different. Staff was cut. The gates, as promised, were locked. As was the door to Elsa's and Letha's shared room. Anna, despite her best attempts, could never get either of them to open it for her... and the poor girl never understood why.

After only a few weeks of abiding by her parents' demands, Letha left their room repeatedly. She did not wander like Anna; instead, she traveled to the library over and over, searching for something, though she would never tell anyone what. Though she conversed with Anna, she never told her of the reality of magic.

As the years passed, it became apparent that Letha was changing. Her temper got shorter and her patience lessened. She grew harsher and colder the more the days went by. Some days, she and Elsa could be heard shouting at each other even through the door. Occasionally, it was rumored she even argued with her parents – long, punishing disputes that left both parties exhausted and no one satisfied. Somehow, King Agdar and Queen Idun never won those battles, and Letha was always found in the library again only a day or two later.

But in her fifteenth year, something changed that no one could ignore, not even Letha herself.

* * *

Letha growled under her breath as she shut another book and shoved it aside, almost knocking it and its brethren off the table entirely. Nothing. Again. Seven years she'd been trying. _Seven years._ And still she had yet to find anything at all pertaining to her powers.

The teenager sought out the next book and opened it, hunting through the table of contents. Every time she found an even remotely promising title, she marked the page and moved on. When she'd finished working through the table of contents, she flipped to the first mark and started reading.

Letha had just barely started into the chapter when the door flew open. The fifteen year old jumped out of her skin, then sighed and rested her forehead on her fingertips at the sight of a familiar pair of strawberry blonde braids. "Good morning!" Anna chirped, twirling past her to reshelve a book she must have finished. Letha didn't need to catch sight of the title to know what it was full of. _Fairy tales. Superstitions and nonsense._ "Or is it afternoon already?"

Letha let out a puff of annoyance and didn't reply, making an attempt to return to her book.

It was no use. Anna hung over her shoulder, trying to see what Letha was reading. "Get off me," the older girl told her sharply, snapping the book shut with a pronounced clap. She had no intention of letting the nosy girl see what she was so interested in, or she would become even more of a nuisance.

Anna jumped back. "Right, sorry, no touching," she apologized. "Sorry."

Letha grunted. "It's fine," she grumbled. What else could she say?

As she stacked the books that had failed to produce any results and moved to reshelve them, Anna picked up the one she'd been starting on curiously. " _'The Science of Sorcery: Secrets Revealed'_?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at her older sister. "I thought you said magic was silly nonsense."

"I said fairy tales were silly nonsense," Letha corrected her, turning around to snatch the book away from the twelve-year-old and seating herself again. "Now go away and leave me be."

Anna flinched, hurt. "Don't say that," she mumbled, looking down.

Letha gave her sister a long sideways look. Only one thing would make her react like that. "You've been by Elsa's again."

She nodded glumly and plunked herself down in a chair next to Letha, resting her chin on folded forearms, which in turn were resting on the table. "I don't get it. From one day to the next, she just... shut me out. Why won't she talk to me anymore? The only thing I've heard out of her in years is, 'Go away, Anna'... she doesn't hate me, right?" Her wide green eyes silently begged Letha to confirm her statement.

Letha considered for a moment. Of course Elsa didn't hate Anna; in fact, Letha suspected that Elsa loved their little sister more than ever. She had berated Letha more than once for endangering Anna by straying outside of their room, in fact, though the younger twin never bothered to listen. But how to explain that to Anna. If she even wanted to explain that.

"No," she said at last, unable to torture Anna any more, even if she was a nuisance. "No, I don't think she hates you." She stood and started stacking up the books she had yet to read. _Though I wouldn't blame her if she did. You did ruin her life, after all._

She didn't realize she'd spoken the first part out loud, under her breath, until Anna asked, "What?" Her voice trembled a little.

"Nothing," Letha snapped, fiercely enough to make Anna reel back. "I didn't say anything." She turned around to make her way out the door, but a confused voice stopped her.

"Letha?"

She turned, irritated. "What?"

"Your hair..." Anna said slowly, eyebrows knitted together. "It's... it's turning black."

Letha gave her an incredulous look. "What? Anna, that's ridiculous. I..." She trailed off as she turned to look in the mirror by the door.

Anna was right.

Most of her hair was still its normal platinum blonde, cut to shoulder length to frame her face in slight waves. The ends were choppy, at a half-dozen different lengths – she'd cut it herself that way, half on purpose. But at the roots, along the part and her hairline... Letha raised a hand to part her hair and look closer. She wasn't seeing things. Her hair was growing in dark. Black, actually.

Letha reeled back a little, looking at her own bewildered eyes in the mirror, reflecting pale blue. This was an unexpected turn of events, to say the least. She couldn't think of what might have caused it, unless...

Unless.

Unless it wasn't a physical cause at all.

After all, a streak of Anna's hair had changed color after she'd been struck with ice magic, to match the hair color of the ones who struck her. That, along with the fact that platinum blonde most certainly did _not_ run in the family, implied that the near-white color that Letha's hair shared with Elsa's was caused by the magic the twins also shared. Which, in turn, made Letha think it was possible for this change to be caused by something not so mundane. Letha suspected that if she and Elsa had been born without magic, their hair would have remained as dark as it had been when they were babies. Perhaps, with her hair turning dark again...

Perhaps she was losing her powers.

Hastily, Letha sought about inside herself. It had been a while since she'd intentionally searched for the magic, so it took her a moment to find that cold spot inside her chest. But she found it all the same: right beside her heart, as strong as it had ever been. Stronger, maybe, which took her by surprise. And perhaps, as she probed it further, even closer to her heart than it had been before.

Was her heart freezing?

She remembered the words of the ancient troll: _The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded._ Was it possible that her own heart was frosting over?

Letha ticked back over the past minutes – then days, weeks, months. She realized that her temper had gotten shorter and her tongue sharper, towards everyone, but especially towards her sisters. Mother and Father too – and when had she started calling them that? When had they ceased to be Mama and Papa? When had Elsa ceased to be her best friend? When, she realized, had things gotten so that she didn't have any friends?

She knew one thing: when this had all started. The day of the accident. The day she had first realized how much she wanted to be able to control this. How much power she truly held inside her, and how badly she wanted it to be hers to command.

Her heart hadn't frozen first, she realized. It had acquired darkness long before that. Her heart was growing dark, and her hair was a warning sign of that. Strangely, Letha couldn't seem to make herself care. She didn't like the idea, per se, but she also just didn't give an icicle. That thought made a smile touch her lips.

"What?" Anna asked cautiously.

"Strange, isn't it," Letha said thoughtfully, staring at the darkening roots of her hair in the mirror, "how in this family, hair always seems to show what's going on inside us?" She turned to give Anna a small smile, which turned unconsciously into a half smirk. Anna felt a chill race through her, making her head ache. "Good day, Anna." Then Letha turned and was gone, leaving the room a few degrees colder, though Anna thought that she must have imagined it.

* * *

"You can't force me to stay in this room!" Letha snapped. "I'm not eight years old anymore!"

"Letha!" her father said sharply, forcing her to lapse into silence. "You must stop these shenanigans. I can't have you prancing about the halls, with the possibility of freezing something or some _one_ constantly there."

"I don't freeze things!"

"You put a shard of ice through the wall only a few weeks ago, Letha."

She scoffed. "Yeah – after several minutes of actively trying to summon some sort of magic. Not that I meant to put ice through the wall," she hurriedly added.

Agdar stood firm. "And that's exactly what I'm talking about – you may not freeze things as often as your sister -" Elsa, sitting quietly on her bed listening to the argument with a grimace, flinched - "but you still don't have full control over your curse."

Letha made a face at him, baring her teeth in exasperation and frustration. "I won't stay locked up in here," she said defiantly. "You can't make me."

Her father looked grim. "Yes," he said firmly, "I can, actually." He turned to leave, but just before opening the door and slipping out, he could be heard to say, "Why can't you be more like Elsa... her curse may be worse, but at least she tries." Then he was gone.

Letha fumed for a moment, toying with the idea of sending splinters of ice flying through the door after him before discarding it – she wouldn't have the skill anyway. By the time she managed it, he would be long gone. Instead, she let out a long breath and stormed over to her bed, throwing herself down onto her back.

She heard Elsa shift like she was about to start talking. "I don't want to hear it," Letha said before her sister could start. "I know what you're going to say. 'Father's right' and 'You should be more careful, Letha' and 'You need to stop putting Anna in danger, Letha' and all that."

Elsa was quiet for a moment. Then, "Actually, I was going to ask what you did to your hair. I understand by now that it's no use trying to convince you not to go out there."

Letha sighed. "I didn't do anything to my hair."

"But it's -"

"Turning black, I'm aware. I don't know why." Not exactly a lie... Letha didn't know for sure. She only suspected.

There was silence for a long time. Then, quietly, "Why can't you at least wear the gloves? Just to make Father happy."

"Elsa, nothing is going to make him happy," she sighed. "Not from us. Our powers made sure of that a long time ago." She rolled over onto her side to look at her twin. "I don't know why you can't accept that and get over it."

Elsa was sitting at the foot of her bed, feet dangling, eyes refusing to meet Letha's. In contrast to Letha's intentionally rough and choppy cut, her hair was long, thick, and neatly braided. "I know you think I should," she said carefully. "But... I can't help but hope... that some day Father will be able to..." she stopped, and Letha finished it for her.

"Accept us." Elsa nodded, and Letha let out a sigh. "I can't believe that he will. Look at what he's trying to do to us... what he's _doing_ to you." She let that hang in the air for a second before going on, knowing that her twin understood the silent accusation: _What you're letting him do to you._ "Conceal, don't feel may be all well and good. But it's not _working,_ is it?"

"It does help," Elsa said stubbornly. "Letha, you don't seem to understand just how dangerous this curse is, no matter how much we tell you. I... I almost killed Anna."

 _No,_ Letha thought, _I made you almost kill Anna._ But she'd realized very quickly that Elsa had never noticed the ice jumping beneath her, much less connected it to Letha, and had kept that fact to herself – why, she was never entirely sure. "You were eight. She was five. It was a stupid accident. Stupid accidents happen to little kids."

Elsa shook her head. "Not like that."

Letha threw her hands up in the air and slid off the bed, back onto her feet. "I'm leaving, since we seem to be running each other into walls here." She opened the door and stepped out.

Just outside, before she closed the door, Letha paused. She usually told Elsa, _I won't do anything._ It was a hidden promise, a few words that meant a hundred things to the twins. _I won't do anything stupid. I won't freeze anything. I won't give our secret away. I won't hurt Anna, or anyone else. I won't fight with Papa._ It was the confirmation she had always given, since one night a few months after the accident when Letha had woken up from a nightmare and stepped outside to take a walk, only for Elsa to stir and call out for her fearfully. Letha had promised Elsa that she wouldn't do anything, and a spark flew between the two twins. Somehow, in their young minds, the meaning became something akin to a superstition, like touching a lucky horseshoe before going out of the barn. Even though they both knew better now, somehow both of them still felt like as long as that promise was repeated before Letha left, nothing _would_ happen. It made them feel like as long as that promise was repeated, the powers – the curse – would stay hidden. It made them feel safe.

Letha turned, shut the door, and walked away.

She didn't say a word.

As she turned the corner, she felt a sharp pain in her skull. She winced and braced one hand against the wall, then as she felt it trace a line down her scalp, stumbled to the nearest window. She found her reflection in the glass, just in time to see the black finish spreading through her hair. Where it had before only covered perhaps a half inch across, now the streak was almost two inches wide. Letha's icy eyes narrowed. She could only guess what it meant, but it was clear that this wasn't going to go away. And maybe it was for the best. Being the good girl wasn't getting Elsa anywhere, was it? So maybe it was time to try something else.

Letha turned away from the window and slipped into a small side room she knew would be empty, which held a window of its own for light. Realizing she was still holding the book from the library, she opened it with a shrug and began to read.

Three marked sections in, she found something of interest. The girl frowned, leaning forward to study the page closer. She turned the pages slowly, reading and rereading with deliberate care, her attention focused solely on the book for once. Frost, so rare for her – and not nearly as long-lasting as Elsa's – spread slowly across her chair, but she didn't notice. _This could explain everything,_ she thought, pale blue eyes widening in shock. _Everything._

The implications as she came to the end of the passage struck her like a harvester's pick going through ice. What this was telling her explained so much... but it also left her gasping for breath, because of what it meant for the kingdom. What it meant for _her._ Even the change from light to dark her hair was showing made sense once this book was taken into account.

Maybe it was just a legend. But it was so accurate... and more importantly, it felt unbelievably, undeniably _right._

In any case, if this was true, there was a simple way to test it. _Father will never forgive you,_ a little voice told her. _He might even get hurt._ Letha's eyes narrowed. _What has he ever done for me? 'Conceal, don't feel.' It doesn't even work._

 _Elsa might get hurt._

That gave her pause. She truly didn't care much for her father at this point... he had never done much to help her, and he was so blasted stubborn that he refused to see that his way wasn't working. Even Anna was more of a nuisance than anything else. Everybody's favorite child. The only _normal_ one in the family. Everyone loved her, and Letha realized she had begun to hate the younger girl for it. But Elsa was a different matter. Elsa was her twin sister. Elsa had shared this burden with her from a few days after birth, when their powers had first manifested. She had helped Letha learn to summon her magic when they were young, had tried as best she could to assist her twin. _But she failed,_ a different voice – colder, nastier – hissed. _Just like your father. Nothing she tried worked any better than his attempts. And she stole your throne._

That one struck a nerve. Letha hadn't really fully understood how the monarchy thing worked until she was maybe nine or ten years old. She had known that Elsa would be queen, but somehow Letha had thought that because they were twins, born at the same time, they would both rule side by side, as equals. It had taken her a few years to realize that Elsa would be the monarch, while Letha would never be anything more than a princess. When she asked why, she was told that Elsa had been born just before her. It stung – that Elsa had gotten the rights to the throne just by being born a measly three minutes earlier than Letha. Somehow, that sting had dug into her and stayed there, pricking her whenever she remembered it. It shouldn't have bothered her so much, she knew. But it did anyway.

 _You know that bothers you, doesn't it?_ The nasty little voice said smugly. _So what if she gets hurt? If it weren't for her, the crown would be yours... you would be Queen._

 _That's not her fault,_ Letha thought, but the protest was frail and half-hearted.

 _Neither was the accident, but she took the credit for that well enough._

Another nerve. Strangely, Letha realized she wasn't guilty about letting Elsa take the blame for it anymore... suddenly, she wanted credit. It hadn't been Elsa's magic that had made her fall and strike Anna. It had been Letha's. If it weren't for Letha, none of it would have happened. And yet she had been practically ignored when it had happened.

 _Yes,_ the voice whispered. _It's always been about those two. Elsa, the eldest, the heir, and Anna, the only_ normal _child, everybody's favorite. You've always been the odd one out. Not like your parents, not born to be queen... just somebody hopelessly caught in the middle._

As the silent war waged in her mind, Letha's brows slowly drew together and her face tightened in an odd expression – not quite anger, and not quite pain. Maybe envy, or maybe something stronger. Something like hate.

She stood, closing the book but marking the page, and strode out of the room, back to her own room. She would test this theory. And if it was true... if it was true, then it would only be a matter of time before she would have to leave. Maybe that wasn't a bad thing.

As it turned out, it would only be a few months before she escaped the castle forever.

* * *

 **Dun dun dun! *cough* Anywho.  
**

 **Longer than most chapters (hopefully!) will be, so sorry and/or you're welcome for that. This is pre-written and most of it isn't split up into sections already, so I'm trying to find the best places for chapter ends, which means some chapters may be considerably longer than others and some may be considerably shorter. You'll have to bear with me on that one.**

 **Reviews, please! What you liked, what you didn't, favorite lines, theories, thoughts, et cetera. Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Woo, more ultra-fast updates compared to normal. I'm making myself sound like a liar... ha. Oh well**

 **EDIT: I knew this AN was too short. Ha, ha... forgot to reply to reviews. Sorry, everyone.**

 **MantaI-305Apollo'sChariot: Yay, you came! ^_^ You're the real reason I started posting this, I'll admit. I'm glad you like Letha; I like her too ;3 It's natural to like the villain-ish one.**

 **Elsa Tomago: I didn't think about that, to be perfectly honest. And yes, Agdar is unfair, but he's also scared for his daughters - all three of them, believe it or not - and for his kingdom and people. {Does he know about - you know, what Letha found?} Oh. Maybe he does. I haven't thought about that. Ha, that would explain it, though. But that's enough teasing for now.**

 **QueenOfIcelandia: Guess you'll have to read on and find out, won't you?**

 **Enchiladas: Yay! I love it when someone leaves a comment like that in their review XD It always makes me so happy when people like my work.**

 **Letting it Go: Letha is very understandable, but things get worse after this. That is kind of what Letha is, isn't it? Though I must admit that's not where it started. You'll see what I mean by that later. (I only replied to the review on the last chapter, btw.)**

 **Word count: 2,244**

* * *

 _Seven years later_

Elsa glanced up as Anna flounced into the room, smiling at her little sister's antics. "Hey, Elsa," Anna greeted her, plopping herself down in a chair and leaning forward to look at the papers the queen was examining. "What's up now?"

"The same as the past few days... nothing interesting." She set them aside. "Did you want something?"

"Nothing in particular," Anna admitted. "Just kinda wanted the excuse to talk. You're awfully busy these days."

"Such is the life of a queen," Elsa sighed, leaning back and rubbing her eyes. She'd been sleeping less and less at night, and it wasn't just because of the paperwork. Old memories were coming back to haunt her recently, although she wasn't sure what was bringing them forward in her mind.

When she opened her eyes again, Anna was watching her, concerned. "You okay?"

"Fine," Elsa assured her. "Just a little tired. Strange dreams."

"You too, huh?" her sister mused, leaning one elbow against the table and tipping her head until she was looking at Elsa sideways. "I don't know why, but recently I keep thinking about... um." She bit her lip. "I mean, old stuff keeps coming up in my head. A lot. Like I said, there's no real reason for it, but for the last few days, I can't stop thinking about..." She trailed off again.

For a long time, the subject had been forbidden, so even when Elsa guessed, her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "Letha." Anna glanced up at her, surprised. "Me too. I keep seeing her face in my dreams... like she was right before she -" She glanced up at the door, as if afraid someone might overhear. Hearing nothing, but knowing that the walls had ears in a place like this, she finished, "Before she died."

Silence stretched out for a moment. Both of them knew that was a lie, but it was a lie that had been kept up for years. Letha hadn't died, that they knew of. She had simply disappeared one night, vanishing like a ghost, and no one had been able to find her. But their father hadn't wanted to admit that he'd simply _lost_ one of his daughters, and so the kingdom had been told that she'd fallen ill, to excuse her disappearance from her frequent place at the windows, where she had been visible. When none of the quiet search parties he sent out came up with any results, the public story was that the illness had been fatal, but no one else had caught it. The kingdom had grieved for their princess, but Elsa always got the feeling that very few people had actually cared very much – and why should they? They had two princesses left over, one of whom always had been the heir anyway, and Letha had never made much of an impact on the general populace. She hadn't been able to, even if she'd wanted to. Elsa was fairly sure that most of the kingdom had all but forgotten the second sister's existence. She herself had felt the loss the most keenly, of course – Letha had been her only companion in her years of solitude. Anna felt the blow as well. But everyone else seemed to barely notice.

After Elsa's coronation, a couple weeks after the Great Thaw, Elsa and Anna had sat down together and, for the first time in years, they had openly discussed their missing sister. At first Anna had wanted to tell the kingdom the truth, but after several minutes of debating, they had decided together that they would leave the existing story in place. There was no point in bringing out the truth just to cause a stir, since both of them accepted that if Letha were going to come back, by now she would have. Wherever she was, all they could hope was that she was happy with the life she'd chosen.

Shaking herself back to the present, Elsa heard Anna ask softly, "Do you think it means something?"

She sighed. "I think it means we're both thinking about the past too much. Letha is gone. There's no point in agonizing over it."

Anna nodded, but she didn't look convinced. "Elsa," she whispered, leaning closer, "what if we could find her? What if she's still out there somewhere, and -"

"She made her choice," Elsa said firmly, too softly for anyone but Anna to possibly hear. "It was her decision. No one forced her hand. Now it's up to us to keep Arendelle safe and in order. If she wants to find us, she knows where we are. We've talked about this."

Anna nodded again, looking subdued. "I know. You're probably right. I just... mm. I don't know. It's strange." She sighed and opened her arms, and Elsa leaned over to give her sister a hug. "I love you, Elsa," she murmured.

"I love you too, Anna."

After Anna had left, Elsa tried to go back to her paperwork, but she couldn't focus. Instead, she repeatedly found herself staring out the window at Arendelle, her mind wandering to a pair of pale blue eyes and choppy, near-white hair streaked with black.

* * *

Up on the North Mountain, Kristoff pulled a block of ice free of the water below and heaved it up onto the surface of the lake. He pushed it along to the next harvester, pausing for a moment in his work as the last hummed notes of the song that kept them all in rhythm died away and wiping his brow. Despite how cold it was up this high even in the summer months, he was still overly warm from the work.

Without warning, a cold wind gusted across the lake, chilling him and his fellow workers in seconds despite layers of protective clothing. All of them shivered and looked up, and Kristoff heard uneasy muttering. The same wind howled through the tops of the trees, rattling their branches and producing a sound eerily akin to laughter. Shadows swooped across the ice as clouds swept through the sky, hiding the sun. Although there had been no sign of snow this morning, it took only seconds before crystalline flakes were falling fast and thick, whipped up by the winds that continued to grow in ferocity.

The ice harvesters had all stopped by now, staring through slitted eyes at the storm that had come out of nowhere. Their mutters turned to cries above the wind, a name that had long since been feared and respected by everyone who walked the North Mountain. A name that had recently seemed to lose its bite, but which was spoken now with all the fear it had ever been accompanied by: "Snow Queen!"

Kristoff knew this couldn't be Elsa's work. There was no reason for her to do this. But he also knew this was no natural storm. Storms had been known to blow up on the mountain without warning, but this kind of ferocity felt... pointed. Directed. Angry. Either way, the workers were scattering now, fleeing whatever way they could, fighting the sudden storm. "Sven!" he called, struggling to raise his voice above the storm. "Sven!"

A shape in the blinding snow – this was quickly turning into a whiteout. The reindeer's familiar antlers butted the wind, driving forward to get to his friend. Kristoff flung his arms around Sven's neck and said into his ear, "We gotta get out of here, buddy."

The reindeer snorted and turned, barely giving the man time to get up onto his back before dashing headlong down the slope, as fast as he could without tumbling forward or running straight into trees. Strangely, as the two made it into the woods, the storm didn't abate – rather, it became stronger, only strengthening Kristoff's fears that this tempest was of unnatural origin. But the two made it out of the trees and down the mountain, and the storm's fury slowly faded, until Sven slowed to a stop, sides heaving as Kristoff slid to the ground.

"Thanks, buddy," Kristoff breathed, and Sven grunted in response, all he could manage so out of breath from the chase. The two both turned to look up at the mountain.

The snow clouds were dissipating, but Kristoff knew their impact on the men and women would not do the same. They would be frightened – and, once they had tallied their losses, angry. There would be a few who would argue the storm was just a freak event, but by and large, the people who made their living off the mountain were a superstitious lot. They would be quick enough to believe this was the doing of magic, and there was only one person with magic capable of such a storm that Kristoff knew of: Queen Elsa.

Still, he could hear people calling to each other, trying to regroup. He joined them, trying to find everyone who had been on the lake. Once that was done, he would hurry to the castle, try to get to the queen before the others could, to warn her and figure out what had actually happened. There was little doubt in his mind that that storm had not been natural, but he also didn't think it was Elsa's doing. Whatever the case, first he had to focus on finding out who had been lost to the sudden storm.

* * *

Elsa turned as Anna slammed open the door and gasped between pants, "Kristoff's downstairs... said it was important."

The poor girl had obviously run all the way here; if Kristoff wanted to see Elsa, it must have been important indeed. The queen scared him a little, more because of her stern outlook on his courting her sister than because of her powers. He wouldn't have called her for a trivial matter. Elsa closed the books immediately and came to her feet. "I'm coming."

A few minutes later, she was pacing the room. Despite the fire going in the hearth, the air had a notable chill to it. "What do you mean, it wasn't normal?" she asked, for the second or third time.

"I mean, it came out of nowhere, and it seemed... directed. When we got into the trees, instead of the wind dying down like it should have, it got stronger." Kristoff raised his hands helplessly. "All I'm saying is, the ice harvesters are nervous, and they're going to be here any minute wanting answers. They know an unnatural storm when they see one."

She gave him a sideways look, coming to a halt. "You think they'll blame me."

"Pretty sure. I mean, you _are_ the only one with ice powers. That we know of," he added quickly as she narrowed her eyes.

Elsa put her fingers to her temples and for the first time noticed that the others' breath was misting a little in the air as the temperature dropped. She sighed and reined in her magic with a little difficulty, and the room warmed again. "I didn't do this."

"We know," both Anna and Kristoff hurried to assure her. Anna added, "Maybe it was just a freak storm? They do happen occasionally..."

Kristoff shook his head. "I don't think so. I've seen flash blizzards before, but never anything like this. And it faded as soon as we were away from the top of the mountain. Elsa, I just... we lost three men and a woman up there. They were good people, people who knew how to survive in a blizzard, but I don't think they made it through this one."

Silence reigned as each of the three struggled with their own thoughts. Elsa knew the angered workers would soon arrive, but she simply didn't know what to say to ease their fears. "Kristoff," she said slowly, "do you think you can keep them calm? Just for a little while... just while we try to figure this out."

He shrugged. "I can try, but I can't promise anything."

She nodded gratefully. "Do what you can, please. And – could I speak with Anna alone for a moment?"

Kristoff gave her a strange look, but he nodded and escaped through the door.

The sisters stared at each other, neither one knowing what to say.

Anna finally broke the silence. "You don't think..."

"It can't be," Elsa replied.

"But if it is?"

"It's not."

"Elsa." Anna's eyes shone with worry. "You have to admit... it's an odd coincidence."

"And that's all it is," Elsa said, trying to convince herself as well as Anna. "A coincidence. Nothing more." Silence again. Then she added quietly, "Anna, even if I wanted to believe it – and I'm not sure I do – she could never control it. She could never summon it at will, not more than a snowflake or an icicle. Not even when we were little. She could never do something like this, even if she tried."

Anna sighed. "You're sure?"

Elsa bit her lip. "Yes," she said, not sounding sure at all.

Anna gave her a sideways look, but shook her head and ignored the lie. "All right. I trust you. But Elsa, if you're wrong..."

The queen set her jaw. "If I'm wrong, then I'll take the blame," she vowed. "And I'll explain to the people."

* * *

High up on the North Mountain, watching the scene in an orb of ice, someone laughed – a cruel, cold sound like ice breaking. "That, my dearest Elsa," a voice said, amused, "will be quite a job."

* * *

 **I apologize for the slightly abrupt ending; there's a slightly abrupt beginning to the next chapter as well. As I have mentioned previously (I think), this is pre-written, and not pre-broken up, so I'm trying to find the best places to do it.**

 **Reviews, please! Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's that awkward chapter beginning I was talking about. It's just too long for one chapter; it sets the bar for average chapter length too high for me to keep up with XD**

 **Letting it Go (user): Well, you don't learn the answers to any of those questions this chapter... hehe. Sorry. Next chapter will answer some questions, promise.**

 **Elsa Tomago: I think I literally created that ice orb as an utterly random prop so that Letha could actually have a means to keep tabs on Arendelle during this whole thing, but it actually is becoming a much more useful thing as I'm writing this ("this" being several chapters in the future XD)**

 **MantaI-305Apollo'sChariot: Yeah, well, there you go. Her life kind of sucks, doesn't it? Adding to that difficulty in fixing it is the fact that Elsa has no power whatsoever over her sister's snow/ice/etc. (and, of course, vice versa). And yes, she is being a bit stubborn, but then, humans are very good at believing what we want to believe and seeing only what we want to see, and she definitely DOESN'T want to believe it's Letha.**

 **Letting it Go (guest): Frankly, I needed an excuse for her hair to be black and Elsa's to be white. Yes, Letha's actions are very plausible, although it's more than just the locking up.**

 **Word count: 2,106**

* * *

Anna frowned as something occurred to her. "Elsa, what did you mean just now – when you said you weren't sure you did want to believe it?"

Her older sister let out a breath. "I know you don't remember how Letha was just before she left. She stopped talking to you entirely, right?" Anna nodded, wondering where Elsa was going with this. "Well, she couldn't avoid me. We lived in the same room. She didn't talk to me much either, but for the last few weeks before she left... I saw her arguing with Mama and Papa more than once. She'd always fought with them, but for a month or so, she actually got scary."

* * *

 _Elsa's Flashback_

 _Elsa watched from her bed, eyes wide as her family argued. "Letha, this has gone far enough," their father said firmly. "You cannot continue to leave this room whenever you please."_

 _Letha's eyes flashed in fury. "You can't keep me here," she shouted. "You can't even pretend you can. Whatever you do, I'll always find a way out. If you lock the door, I'll climb out through the window. If you put a lock on the window, I'll find a way out and I'll never come back," she threatened. "I've done it before, and I can do it again."_

 _Elsa, of course, knew exactly how her twin sister got out whenever the door was locked, and it usually wasn't through the window. The secret passages in the walls of the castle were many, though well hidden, and while all three sisters knew of their existence and had explored them from time to time in their youth, Letha had by far the most extensive knowledge of them. Elsa suspected that by now, Letha could get just about anywhere in the palace, without ever being seen or heard. But though she had been asked before, Elsa always claimed ignorance, out of loyalty to her sister. She didn't like lying to her father and mother, but she also knew that Letha would never forgive Elsa if she told. She wasn't willing to do that._

 _"_ _Letha. Your curse is a danger to the other people you come across," he told her, anger building. "One wrong step, and it will be revealed. One wrong move, and you could hurt someone. You could_ kill _someone, Letha!"_

 _"_ _I haven't yet!" she yelled. "I haven't frozen one single thing outside this room, in seven years! I don't know why you can't seem to get that through your thick skull!"  
"Letha," their mother chastised, her voice like a whip. Even Letha flinched a little; usually their mother didn't participate in these arguments, but when she took a hand, she was a force to be reckoned with. "Do not speak to your father that way."_

 _Despite her momentary wavering, Letha stood her ground. "I'll speak to him however I like," she spat. "I don't see him stopping me."_

 _"_ _That is quite enough," Agdar snapped. "You listen to me -"_

 _"_ _No!" Letha shouted, and magic sparked off of her. Elsa's eyes went wide as she watched. Letha's magic_ never _responded to her, not like this. Not unless she was trying very hard indeed. A frosty, shocked silence covered the room for a moment, giving Elsa a chance to study her twin's face. And yes, there – the little line between her dark eyebrows, and the little crease at the corner of her lips, and the tiniest twitch of her right ring finger: the signs no one ever picked up on but Elsa. The signs that told Elsa her sister was concentrating her hardest, fighting to pull her magic into control._ What is she doing?

 _"_ _No," Letha repeated breathily, just when her father seemed about to speak again. "You – listen – to ME!"_

 _She flung her hands at the floor in a gesture that in anyone else might have been one of frustration and rage, but in Letha was a furious attempt to summon magic._

 _And for maybe the first time in years, it was successful._

 _Ice shot from her hands, striking the floor and shooting up in a single spike, the tip of which whizzed past their father's ear with a_ fft! _to almost strike him. Almost. He paled but did not move, slowly raising one hand disbelievingly to finger the ice gingerly, as if to make sure it was real. When he discovered it was, his face darkened in rage the likes of which Elsa had never seen on her father before. She shrank back, even though it wasn't directed at her. "Letha," he breathed, "this has gone too far."_

 _But his voice tremored at the end. A small thing, almost unnoticeable, but Elsa caught it. And so did Letha. And when she heard it, Letha did the most unexpected thing in the world._

 _She smiled. It was a small smile, but Elsa shivered when she saw it. The room's temperature dropped several degrees, though it was impossible to say which sister had caused it. Perhaps it had been both._

 _"_ _I wouldn't suggest pushing me any farther," Letha said, her voice a strange mixture of anger and just a little bit of – satisfaction? Elsa doubted anyone else heard it, but she picked up on the smallest things in her twin, and vice versa, so it was not surprising that she caught it when no one else did. "Or you might not get as lucky a second time. You said it yourself – I'm dangerous. Who can say when I might_ lose control? _"_

 _"_ _This is not over," her father warned, before turning and leading his queen from the room. Idun looked back, only to see the twin whose hair had once been white but now had turned almost entirely black staring after them with a strange expression. Then the door shut, and they were gone from view._

 _Silence. Then Letha let out a short laugh, sharper than the ice her magic had just conjured. "Well, what do you know?" she whispered to herself. With barely a glance at Elsa, she popped the latch for the hidden door to the secret passages and vanished. Before the door closed again, Elsa thought she saw a perfect snowflake hovering above Letha's hand, but that was impossible. Letha had never had that kind of control._

 _Shaken, Elsa had barely slept that night._

 _But in the morning, the ice spikes Letha had created were gone._

* * *

"She never actually hurt him," Elsa finished. "But I could see it... they were both starting to be a little afraid of her, even Mama. And even though they both assumed it was an accident – of course they did – I knew it wasn't. She was doing it on purpose, using what little control she had over her magic to scare them. I never understood why. All I know is that whatever reason she had to try and scare them, she was succeeding. But for some reason, I was never afraid of her. Of myself..." Her eyes darkened. "Of my own powers, always. But I was never afraid she would try to hurt me. And then... then one morning I woke up and she was just gone. I still don't know how she got out without waking me up."

Anna nodded sympathetically. Impulsively, she hugged her sister. "It doesn't matter anymore. You don't need to be afraid. I'm here."

Elsa smiled at her, but it was half-hearted. "I know." She sighed. "Now I just have to figure out what to tell the ice harvesters."

* * *

Ice harvesters placated, and funerals held for the three lost – one man had been found alive, forced into hiding by the freakish storm – Elsa had hoped that things would go back to normal. Instead, they only got stranger.

Fall was coming fast, and it was coming on strong. Cold, bitter winds swept through the fjord on a regular basis. Frost was found more than one morning, almost two months earlier than usual. The townspeople were uneasy, and their queen was too, although she tried not to show it in public. No one knew what was causing this sudden onslaught, but it there were nervous mutterings throughout Arendelle, in town and castle alike. And it only seemed to get worse.

At one point, Elsa was sitting in a particularly stressful meeting with her advisers, listening to them banter back and forth. The room's temperature was slowly sinking, but no one seemed to notice. Certainly Elsa herself didn't.

Suddenly, a window burst open, causing everyone to jump and stare. Cold wind, snow borne on it, whipped into the room, making people scramble to catch and hold their papers. Elsa's eyes went wide and she fought to force the wind to go down, but found she couldn't. It was outside her control. Eyes were finding her, one pair at a time, but she could do nothing. This wasn't her magic. "Queen Elsa, please!" someone cried out, sounding almost more irritated than anything else. "Control yourself!"

That statement under any other circumstances would have irked her, but at present moment, she was too stunned to do anything. "I'm not doing this," she shouted over the rapidly rising wind, hunching over the table to protect the documents in her possession from the wild bit of storm that had been set loose in the room.

"Then what is?" Notably more fear than irritation colored the voice now.

She shook her head, unable to answer that. The snow lashed around _her_ especially, which did not strengthen her argument. Finally managing to close the file containing all the papers, she shoved it over to someone else and stood, fighting the wind to get to the open window. She tried to close it, but found it stuck fast by the wind, which was if anything getting stronger. _"Stop it!"_ she finally snarled in frustration.

Almost immediately, the wind abated. The window panes suddenly came loose, released from the pressure of the gale, and snapped back into place so fast Elsa got a fingertip shut between them. Grimacing and rubbing the offending digit, she turned to look at the room. Papers were everywhere; the place was an absolute mess. Most of the loose pages were likely ruined by the snow.

Elsa cautiously opened the window again and looked outside. The sky was clear, the air calm. There was nothing to show that there had been a miniature blizzard just a moment ago. Elsa closed the window again (carefully this time) and locked it, then asked, "Is everyone all right?"

There were nods from around the room, but she realized a lot of people were staring at her. She took a breath to compose herself. _This wasn't me,_ she insisted silently, knowing what was going through their minds, but if she'd said it like that, she would have sounded like a petulant child. Instead, she held her tongue, moving to the table cautiously as a glint caught her eye. There on the wood lay a single snowflake, larger and clearer than any natural flake, crafted of clear blue ice. It was more jagged and much simpler than Elsa's own signature snowflake, but it also sealed Elsa's fears even as it began to melt: this early fall, and these storms, were not natural. Something – someone – was causing them.

Elsa plucked the icy flake off the table and it solidified again as she intentionally chilled it. "We will continue this at a later date," she said quietly but firmly, dismissing the officials. There was much silent shuffling of papers, most of them ruined, as they all made their way out the door. When the last one left, closing the door behind him, Elsa held up the snowflake with one hand. With her other hand, she crafted her own signature snowflake. The two were very different – one with six spokes, one with eight, and her own flake much more complicated than the more jagged one – but they also shared some similarities.

The queen's snowflake vanished, but she kept the aura of chill around the other one to preserve it. Sure now that all her officials would be long gone, she swept out of the ruined room and hurried to find Anna and Kristoff. While she usually dismissed the mountain man, now she needed his help. Rather, the help of his family, which only he could help her find.

Surely the trolls would know something about this.

* * *

 **I know this scene didn't really answer very many questions, but I promise it's important for reasons which will be explained later. Here's a question for you guys: why is Letha trying to scare Elsa's advisers? (For the record, I still think that should be spelled advisors, but SpellCheck insists it's "advisers." Maybe I'm spelling it the British way or something.)**

 **Reviews, please! Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Longer chapter. This is the problem with pre-written stories not broken up into chapters. Not much to be done about that.**

 **Oh boy... coming up on where I've stopped. Oi, Muse! They're going to catch up with us soon, and then they'll be champing at the bit for more, and then we're going to get stuck. Can you drop the unpublished stuff and get back to work on this while we're still ahead of the game? {Fine... but Savage...} Carella, put the feels dagger down. We can get back to that later. {Fine. Just one more short...} _Carella!_**

 **You see my problem?  
**

 ***cough* Anywho.**

 **MantaI-305Apollo'sChariot: I think Letha knows that Elsa's not going to be afraid of her anytime soon. She's more likely to be indignant and angry. The twins both hesitate to harm each other directly. Revenge is certainly a factor, but that's not all of it.  
**

 **Letting It Go: Yes, well, I PM'd you, and the misunderstanding was cleared up, so ta-da!**

 **Elsa Tomago: Agdar certainly deserves it. Idun perhaps slightly less so. Yes, Elsa does always seem to get the short end of the proverbial stick, doesn't she? But Letha's end is even shorter, unfortunately... you'll see what I mean by that this chapter.**

 **Fenix Fireblaze: There is very little I enjoy more than watching someone review several chapters of my story in quick succession and their opinion going from "this has potential" to "this promises to get good" XD As I said, there's little I can do about chapter length; sometimes they're just either absurdly long or absurdly short, and I tend toward the short side of the spectrum.**

 **On to the story, when we finally start to figure out what's going on with Letha.**

 **Word count: 3,521**

* * *

"Grand Pabbie!" Anna called. "Grand Pabbie, please, we need your help!"

Almost immediately, round boulders large and small began rolling toward the princess. Her sister clutched her hand tightly; she could never get used to that. Within a few seconds, the four – Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and the ever-present Sven – were surrounded by the rock trolls, but unlike usual, the amiable creatures weren't chattering and conversing. Instead, low, uneasy murmurs rumbled through the crowd.

The oldest of the trolls, with his mossy cape, stepped out and Elsa knelt to meet him. "Queen Elsa," he greeted her. "A pleasure, as always... and, as always, you seem to bring trouble with you. Someday you shall have to come and see us when there is not disaster in the air."

"It's that bad?" Elsa asked, worried.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Anna grumbled behind her. Kristoff shushed her.

Grand Pabbie smiled slightly, but it faded quickly. "What did you come to ask?"

"We came to ask about this," Elsa replied, holding up the snowflake. Immediately, the troll's brow creased and he beckoned her to give it to him. "If I let go of it, it will -"

"Melt, I know." He took it from her anyway and examined it as it began to liquefy immediately, then let the water fall to the grass and soak into the earth. "How did you come across this?"

Elsa relayed the story of the storm. When she had finished, she added hesitantly, "Grand Pabbie... what is doing this?"

He made a small hmm in his throat. "Not what, Elsa. Who. And that question is one you know the answer to."

Her heart dropped like a stone. "Letha."

"Who?" Kristoff whispered to Anna. This time she shushed him.

Grand Pabbie, meanwhile, nodded. "Your sister is the cause of this, but it is not entirely her fault. Sit, all of you... this tale is one that takes a while to tell.

"Once, hundreds of years ago, there was a great kingdom, its name long forgotten even by us. It stood where Arendelle stands now today, at the foot of the North Mountain. From this kingdom were born many great heroes, brave and strong. There was only one place they dared not go: not even the bravest of these heroes sought to climb the heights of the North Mountain. For on that mountain, there lived a being known as the Snow Queen.

"The Snow Queen was an immortal being. Some say that she was a demi-goddess, others contend that the name was merely a title, passed from mother to daughter for hundreds of years. No one knows the truth, aside from one thing we rock trolls know: she was, in fact, a single person, immortal. No one knows why. She never told anyone. She may not have known herself. But she bore great magic, power over ice, snow, and all things cold. She brought harsh winters to the kingdom, and every year was beat back only by the strength and warmth of summer. She lived at the very peak of the North Mountain, where not even you have been, Elsa. No creature has ever been there since this tale and returned.

"One year, the winter was even harder than most. Many people died of cold and starvation. And a brave but foolhardy king set forth to put an end to it, by killing the Snow Queen."

Elsa shivered. The tale was starting to sound all too familiar.

Grand Pabbie took no notice. "He took a division of his best men and ventured up the mountain.

"Along the way, many were killed. They slew the wolves that attacked them, but could do little to defend against the wind and snow that lashed in their faces, threatening to freeze them where they stood. No one knows how they survived to the peak, but the king and three of his men persevered, until they stood at the doors of the Snow Queen's castle.

"The winds stopped abruptly. The snow stopped falling. And there stood the Snow Queen herself, in all her glory, clothed in white, hair as black as a raven's feathers, skin as white as snow, eyes as cold as stone. And she spoke, and her voice was like a crystal goblet struck with a metal instrument. 'You are very brave,' she said, 'and warm of heart, to have made it so far into my domain. But it is in vain. This was a mistake, you mortal. You call yourself king, but there is only one queen: the queen of the mountain. Me. Escape while you can, or yours will be a fate worse than death.'

"The king trembled, from cold and from fear, but he spoke. 'I cannot leave while you still breathe, Snow Queen. You have plagued my kingdom long enough.'

"'So be it,' she said, and stood to face them with all the powers of Winter ready.

"The king and his men charged her, determined to end the winter that was slowly destroying their kingdom, and steel met ice in a horrible battle."

Elsa was trembling now. This story was too much like her own experience, and it was bringing back bad memories barely staved off by the comforting arm Anna put around her shoulders.

"Two of the three remaining men were quickly slain, one taking ice through the heart and the other slammed against the castle wall hard enough to crack his skull open, staining the blue-white ice with red. And the king and his last knight fought on.

"In the end, they got on either side of her. The Snow Queen was powerful, but she was tiring, even as her opponents trembled with exhaustion. Thinking herself fast enough to take them both on, she swiftly blocked the slash of one sword with a spear of ice, nearly taking the man's head off.

"But she stumbled, and took the king's sword in her chest. His blade froze immediately, and he was forced to drop it, but the damage was done – the Snow Queen fell, blood staining the snow around her.

"The king dropped to his knees beside her, staring down at her almost blankly. 'It is finished.'

"'That is what you think,' she hissed, her voice rattling. 'Listen to me closely, you who call yourself king, for I have not enough time to say this twice. You have been the end of me, but you were a fool to think that I was the sole cause of this winter... Nature cannot be stopped. The winter will go on. I was just a tool...

"'Your heart burns hot for your kingdom, and for your family,' she breathed. 'But it has been cold for me, who needed it the most. For this, I lay a curse on your family forever.'

"The king stared at her, and blood spattered her lips as she spoke, but still she pressed on, wheezing as the last bit of her life blood drained away. 'I lay this curse on you: as long as a kingdom stands beneath my mountain, there will forever be a ruler of winter in the royal family. My powers will go to him or her, but so will a curse... their heart will slowly freeze, and they will become as cold as you were to me. They will be worse for the kingdom than I ever was. This... is... my... final... curse.'

"He shook his head. 'How... who...' The implications dawned on him, and he scrambled to his feet, blood suddenly running cold with fear. 'No.'

"A hoarse laugh, which quickly turned into a bloodstained cough, fell from her lips. 'You only have one daughter...' she whispered, and with those words she died.

"The king was frantic. His last man had fallen, frozen by the last of the storm, but he half ran, half fell down the mountain to get to his daughter. Fear and love for her gave him strength. But when he found her in her room, she was already staring at her mirror in shock and horror, for she had heard the Snow Queen's whispers as well through the last bit of the woman's magic, and her hair was turning black.

"When she saw her father behind her, stained with blood – both the Snow Queen's and his own – fear sparked in her eyes. The mirror frosted over even as she spun around to face him. He cried her name and went to her as if to clutch her in an embrace, but she dodged around him and fled, weeping, knowing what was to be her fate, feeling the cold inside her already, terrified of what the Snow Queen's final curse had placed inside her."

He at last finished, and settled back with a deep sigh. Shaking, Elsa leaned back into her sister's warm hug. "How I got my powers," she whispered.

"Yes," he agreed. "The Snow Queen's final curse still stands today. No one has ever found a way to break it. But, Elsa... your magic is different. I know not why. I suspect it has something to do with your sister, for the curse has clearly affected her. Twins are affected strangely by the Snow Queen's curse."

Elsa thought about that for a moment. "She's there, isn't she? On the North Mountain."

Grand Pabbie nodded solemnly. "At the very peak, where not even you have ventured."

"Thank you," she said, and stood, helping Anna up. "I don't suppose you have any advice on how to stop her?"

He made another little "hmm" in his throat. "Do not harm her if you can avoid it... she is not herself. Rather, she is, but a very cold version of herself. If she is killed, the curse will simply continue, passing on to your child, or to Anna's."

That was a very scary thought. Elsa and Anna exchanged a horrified glance. _That can't happen. The ice powers are great and all, but what's happening to Letha... No._

"To the North Mountain, then," Elsa said, in a small, reluctant voice.

"To the North Mountain," Anna agreed.

"I will never call you Snow Queen again," Kristoff decided. Sven snorted in agreement.

* * *

"You know, it's actually a really sad story," Anna mused as they drove away on the sleigh, back toward Arendelle.

Kristoff glanced at her. "What?"

"The Snow Queen's story. It's actually really sad. I mean, she was all alone up on that mountain, for hundreds of years – nobody to talk to, no friends, no family. She was always just... feared. Hated."

"She did cause a lot of people to die in her winters," Kristoff pointed out.

"Yeah, but they weren't even her fault," Anna argued. "She said she wasn't the cause of the winter. That it was just nature, and nature couldn't be stopped."

"She said she wasn't the _sole_ cause of the winter," Kristoff corrected her. "That means she did take a part in it."

"I don't know. I don't feel like that's right." Anna sighed and tugged on one of her braids, thinking. "What did she say? 'I was just a tool.'" She wrapped her cloak tighter around herself as the air steadily got colder. "And, anyway, she got killed for nothing. That king killed her, and it didn't even stop the winter. It didn't do anything. She died for noth- Elsa, are you okay?"

"Hmm?" The older girl glanced over. "Oh – I'm fine, Anna. Just... thinking." Despite her words, she was staring off into the distance, arms wrapped around herself, a small crease between her eyebrows.

Anna scooted over to snuggle up next to her. "It's going to be okay," she promised. "I know it is."

"How can you say that?" Elsa wondered aloud. "We've just discovered that Letha and I are have a curse hanging over our heads, one Letha's already succumbed to. That it's the only reason we have powers. That we might have to hurt, even kill our _sister._ "

"You know, if someone would explain to me who this Letha is, I would be much obliged," Kristoff poked in. Anna quickly did her best to explain Letha's existence and why Kristoff probably didn't know about her. Kristoff nodded slowly. "Now that you mention it, I think I do remember something about a third royal sister. But it was a long time ago, when I was just a kid, before the trolls took us in."

"I think most of Arendelle has forgotten about her," Elsa said quietly. "She never made much of an impact on the town. She never had the chance. And... she always kind of fell under my shadow. I was the crown princess, the heir. Letha was just kind of... there. She always had a habit of watching from the shadows." She leaned over with a smile to ruffle Anna's hair. "Not like my other little sister."

"Hey!" Anna pulled away and batted at her sister's hands playfully. "I watched too! I just talked a lot more than her."

"And got sent to our room because of it," Elsa remembered. "Anyway. The point is, no one ever learned that she has ice powers like me. That, combined with the fact that everyone but us thinks she's dead, means that if she throws winter down on Arendelle... they're going to blame me." She grimaced and looked off into the forest again. "And I can't control her snow and ice, any more than I can control a natural storm."

"Fantastic," Kristoff murmured. Elsa nodded sullenly in agreement.

* * *

Pale fingers flew across the sphere of ice, the image within clearing to a glassy clarity. The woman let out a breathy laugh. _I don't know what they're playing at. If Elsa thinks she can control me, she is wrong._

She raised a hand and watched her snowflake form between her half-curled fingers. She smiled slightly, but it faded fast. She was gaining power again, but she was still not at full strength... not like she had been last summer. The ice around her was still cracked, despite her efforts to heal it, and she had been pressing her limits when she had sent that small storm into the precious _Queen_ Elsa's meeting. Much less dissipating it immediately when Elsa at last gave into her frustration, to give the appearance that it had been her doing. That kind of effort had left her slumped against the wall, breathing hard, head spinning, but it had been worth it – she'd gotten another jolt of power as a result.

Once she had discovered the secret to her magic, it was easy enough to control it most of the time. Of course, it had been all but nonexistant for several years, when she was hiding herself away and everyone thought she was dead... but last summer, she had been granted an enormous wave of energy and strength, something that had piqued her interest. When she had seen the reason for it, she had laughed out loud – for from her lofty perch high on the North Mountain, she could see easily that Arendelle had been frozen over. And she knew it was not her doing. _Thank you, Elsa._

Unfortunately, it had taken only a few days for her surge of power to subside, when Arendelle was thawed again and the people accepted Elsa among them. Her new palace had cracked, and threatened to fall down around her, though she maintained enough control to keep it from doing that. It was severely mangled, though – barely controlled spikes of ice jutted up to support weak spots on the walls and ceiling, from her swift and frantic repairs. Still, it held up, and she was not uncomfortable.

"Snow Queen indeed," she growled, glancing back at the darkened orb. "I'll show them Snow Queen." Bitterness clawed at her, but only in an oddly detached way. Everything was oddly detached now... only the coldest of emotions, frozen anger and hatred, were anything resembling immediate. Letha supposed _that_ was likely a result of her heart freezing.

It didn't matter. _What's done is done._ Best not to dwell on the past. All that mattered now was that Elsa and Anna were coming, the two people who had never, ever been afraid of her. She curled her lip and sent ice spikes toward a creaking section of wall. She gritted her teeth and forced the magic to finish, the tips of the spikes spearing the ice of the wall, supporting it. She yanked her hands away, struggling to halt the flow of magic, then stopped and smiled faintly. _Why stop it..._ She balled her hands into loose fists, collecting it in her hands as she paced quickly to the open window. _...when you can just redirect it?_

She let it go, the last of the magic spent, and snow and ice whipped down the mountainside toward Arendelle.

* * *

Elsa barely noticed the wind pick up. She was lost in thought, and while she did in fact feel the cold, it didn't really affect her. However, she _did_ notice when her little sister shivered and scooted closer to Kristoff for warmth. (Elsa wasn't much help in that department.) Shaking herself out of her reverie, she realized that Anna's teeth were chattering, and even Kristoff was looking a bit chilled. "Anna? Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Anna assured her.

"You're shivering," Elsa noted with a frown, wishing she could help.

"Elsa, really, I'm okay," she promised. "It's just a bit chilly out."

"Uh-huh. Temperature's dropping," Kristoff said mildly. "I suppose it could be because the sun's starting to drop behind the trees -" He stopped, eyes widening at something in front of them. "Then again, maybe not." He looped an arm around Anna, which Elsa didn't have a chance to protest before they were struck by a fierce gale howling down from up the mountain.

Anna was saved by Kristoff's last-second grab, but he hadn't managed to reach Elsa in time and she was nearly knocked out of the sled by the sheer force of the wind. She yelped and scrambled for a hold, barely managing to keep her seat. She squinted against the snow being blown into her face and eyes – something that didn't happen most of the time – and reached out to pull herself closer to Kristoff and Anna. Anna didn't register the touch, as cold as the rest of the storm, until Elsa leaned in and shouted in her ear, "Tell Kristoff to stop the sleigh!"

Anna nodded and relayed the instructions – even shouting right next to a person, it was difficult to hear over the sudden storm – and Kristoff stopped Sven under the relative cover of a low tree. The three huddled together, two for warmth, one purely so she didn't get blown away.

Despite Elsa's expectations, she realized that the wind was lessening almost as quickly as it had come up. As soon as she thought Anna wouldn't be blinded immediately by the snow, she tugged on her little sister's sleeve and pointed wordlessly out at the remnants of the storm.

Elsa jumped out of the sleigh and slid to the ground, walking out a few paces into the open, barely leaving footprints. Snow was still falling, but it was a soft, natural snowfall now and Elsa could feel it giving her strength, rather than tugging at her, trying to steal it. She turned and looked down the mountain, broken trees and disturbed snow belying the path of the gale, and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, no."

Snow was falling on Arendelle. _Fast._

Elsa glared up the mountain, a new anger burning inside her. "Letha!" she shouted, for no particular reason – there was no way her twin could possibly hear her, but Elsa still had the oddest feeling that she was listening.

"I'm coming, Letha. I'm coming up this mountain you think is yours. And you _will_ stop this!"

* * *

Laughter rang through the darkened ice halls. "You had better be coming, Elsa," she laughed. "I'm counting on it, after all. You, and our _precious little sister._ " She curled her lip in disdain. "The only _normal_ one out of us. By extension... the only one susceptible to the cold. The only one who's really in danger here."

She smiled, flicking the view in her orb back up the mountain, judging the distance, the time until they reached her. Even if they stopped for the night now, they would still reach her by midmorning. _Perfect._

"Your love for our sister will be the death of you, Elsa," she chided the figure standing in the snow, far below her. "Whoever holds Anna... holds the bargaining chip that will be your undoing.

"Especially when that someone can freeze her heart in an instant."

* * *

 **Dun-dun-dun! {You end with that too often.} Do I? *checks* Hm. Perhaps I do. Oh well.**

 **Reviews, please! You know I love 'em ;3 Love you guys! See y'all next time!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay, longer chapter. There was no way I could break this up that wouldn't end up with an absurdly short chapter and a still-really-long chapter, so there you go. Oh well. It's been a while since I updated anyway. (Sorry about that, by the way. I've been a bit busy; we're in Tech Week with Drama, so... yep. Running running running from 7:30 AM to ~8:15 PM during the week. Yay! *sarcastic jazz hands* Worth it, though.)**

 **I feel like I don't write Kristoff very well. For some reason I'm not very comfortable with his character. Hrmenr.**

 **GingerSnaps1049: I'm really really grateful my mother's not in the house, because when I saw you'd reviewed I literally screamed "WHAT - WHAT - Red reviewed my Frozen fanfic. Frozen. Red. WHAT?!" And - oh, I'm not evil, dear. I'm wicked. And wicked _always_ wins.  
**

 **Elsa Tomago: Glad you found it interesting. And yes... Anna has the biggest heart out of all of the characters I've ever written, I think. It is her greatest weakness, and her greatest strength. Also - wish granted.**

 **Shadowfax321: Nor for anyone else, methinks XD**

 **Fenix Fireblaze: The first time I read that review made my frinking _day_ XD I remember texting one of my besties the review and laughing uproariously over it. I take far too much glee out of stabbing people with the feels dagger, you know that?**

 **Word Count: 3,745**

* * *

"Qu- Elsa?"

Elsa turned her head just enough to look sidelong at Kristoff's whisper. He was sitting up, watching her as she sat with her back to the embers of the fire, knees curled up to her chest, staring off into the darkness. "Yes?"

"Are you... are you all right?"

She sighed and turned back toward the cold night. "No," she said honestly.

She heard him carefully shift around, so as not to disturb the sleeping Anna, and came to sit next to her, keeping a respectful several inches of space between them, maybe by habit. "It's Letha, isn't it?" he asked quietly.

"Yes." She rested her chin on top of her knees. "I know that it's her doing this now... but what I don't understand is _why._ "

"Why the attack?"

"More than that," she admitted. "Why... why she started trying to scare our parents. Why she stopped talking to Anna. Why her hair turned black. Why she ran away... why everything."

He frowned. "Her hair... turned black?"

Elsa nodded. "It started when we were fifteen. Her hair had always been platinum blonde, like mine, but that year, we realized it was starting to grow in black. It changed slowly, but by the time we were sixteen, it was almost completely black. We never knew why. Not even Letha knew, to the best of my knowledge."

"That's... weird."

"For lack of a better term, yes," she agreed. "It was shortly after it had completely finished growing in black that she disappeared. And two years after that... our parents." She sighed quietly. "Lost at sea. They can't even say, 'dead.' Always just, 'lost at sea.' It always... messed with my head, I guess. There was no finality to it."

He nodded, unsure what to say, and they sat in silence for a long time. Hesitantly, he put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed for a split second under the touch, but eased again, glancing over at him. It surprised him how cool her skin was, though he supposed it shouldn't have. "Go to sleep, Elsa. I'll keep watch."

* * *

Elsa stared up at the sheer cliff face. "Now you know why I never got to the top."

Kristoff gave her a sidelong glance. "What, no magical ice staircase?"

The sisters exchanged a long-suffering look. "There was no need at the time." She didn't add what had also prevented her from climbing any higher than her ice palace in the past – an air of foreboding, of malice, that she hadn't noticed consciously in her exhilaration, but which she hadn't wanted to touch once the adrenaline wore off. Raising her hands, she felt cold wash through her, chilling her from the inside out as ice arched and spread up to the top of the cliff, forming a staircase that she knew would hold them all, despite the fact that it looked as if it would break.

Anna grinned. She never seemed to tire of her sister's magic. However, Elsa blocked her when she tried to start up the stairs. "Anna, I know you're not going to let me go alone, but at least let me go first," she said. "Letha can't hurt me if she strikes me with her magic, but if she hits you before I can get there -"

"She won't hurt us," Anna said. "She's our sister, Elsa."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the queen murmured, but she didn't press the issue, instead turning and starting up the stairs.

They came up over the ridge, and Elsa put a hand to her mouth. What stood before them was a structure of ice, but it was a mockery of Elsa's palace. It might have been a magnificent fortress, if not for the jagged spikes piercing and sprouting from the walls. Buttresses were split by giant icicles, columns splintered under their own weight. The whole place looked as if it might fall apart – Elsa realized the spikes were not the source of the problem; they were simply an attempt to solve it, holding up the walls. Wind whipped across the summit, the palace itself blending into the snow seamlessly. Anna and Kristoff both shivered despite thick layers of clothing. Elsa, of course, was unaffected by the cold, but her heart was in her throat, a sense of dread overcoming her.

A gust of wind and snow blew up in their faces, and even Elsa had to shield her face so as not to be completely blinded. When the air cleared and the wind died, Letha was there.

Elsa barely recognized her own twin sister. Even at a distance of twenty feet, it was clear how much Letha had changed. Her black hair was swept back and up in spikes, doubtlessly held there by frost. Her skin was paler than ever, almost completely white, save the dark bruise-like circles under her eyes – piercing white-blue eyes that slammed into Elsa with all the force of a gale. She, too, had crafted herself an ice dress, or at least part of one – pale blue skirt and dark blue-gray bodice, a cape of ice, more opaque than Elsa's own, coming up behind her head in a fashion she knew was popular among the royals in some countries, but which Elsa had never found particularly attractive. Letha, however, wore it well.

More than that, though, Elsa was shocked by her twin sister's health – she was gaunt, and there was a sense of _thinness_ all through her – not skinniness, although she was thin that way as well, but almost as if she were translucent, so that if Elsa were only to look hard enough, she could see right through her. She looked, in a word, awful.

"Letha," she breathed, taking an almost involuntary step forward, reaching out toward her twin as if in a trance.

"Don't come any closer," Letha spat, breaking the moment, raising her hands as if she might cast ice at Elsa.

Elsa stopped. Before she could say anything, however, her sister's eyes flicked over Anna and Kristoff and a harsh, brittle laugh rang through the silence. "Well. I was _expecting_ our precious little sister, but you brought an ice harvester, too?"

Anna bristled and started forward, only for both Elsa and Kristoff to hold her back. "Hey! He's my boyfriend!"

Letha raised her eyebrows at her, unimpressed. "Ah, yes, your _true love._ " She said the words mockingly, which just made Anna angrier. "I'd think you'd have figured out by now that true love doesn't exist. But then, you always were the dreamer. The one who believed in fairy tales." She snorted in amusement, turning away.

Elsa took another step forward. "Letha, what..."

"I said, don't come any closer!" Letha snarled, whipping around. Her lips were turning blue with frost, something that took Elsa by surprise. Elsa hesitated, glancing at Anna to make sure she wasn't going to do something stupid, and then walked forward, slowly, deliberately. Letha recoiled, but didn't back up, and Elsa kept walking until they were only inches apart and she could study her twin sister's face closely.

Everything about her sister seemed sharper, colder – her face, her eyes, her voice. Her lips were white, the blue faded from the frost as it stopped being fueled by her magic. Her eyebrows seemed darker than Elsa remembered, but that was probably a result of her skin turning almost white. Her hair was indeed glittering with ice. To anyone else, she might have appeared cruel, and cold, and untouchable – the Snow Queen incarnate.

But Elsa saw the bruises under her eyes. Elsa saw the little creases between her eyebrows, telling her just how much her sister had struggled all these years. Elsa saw the cracks in the frost on her lips. Even with all her faults, Elsa saw her sister.

* * *

Even as Elsa was looking at Letha, Letha was looking back.

Her sister had changed almost as much as she had. Her eyes were brighter, her hair casually untidy, back in a single braid like when they were children, looped over her shoulder, sparkling with frost. Everything about her screamed control, power, freedom. Anyone else would have seen an independent, brave, beautiful young woman, in perfect control of her own magic.

But Letha saw the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes from years of crying. Letha saw the slightest upturn of her eyebrows, a habitual remnant of years in fear. Letha saw the smallest faults in the snowflakes in her braid. Even after all these years, Letha saw her sister.

* * *

Anna watched, awestruck, as Elsa approached their sister and the twins stood there for a very long time, just staring at each other. She knew both of them well, but she knew she would never be able to read Elsa as easily as Letha could, nor vice versa. Not after so many years kept away from them – Elsa by a door, and Letha by her own prickly demeanor. She feared she would never be able to see all the hardships, all the struggles, every shred of emotion, just by looking at her older sisters. Not like they could when they looked at each other. Between the two of them, when there was silence and stillness, there were no secrets.

* * *

Elsa let out a shaky breath, and the spell was broken. Letha turned around to walk away from her, but Elsa saw the way she twitched her cape – a good deal shorter than Elsa's – out of the way first and smiled despite herself. Letha had always hated lengthy capes with a passion; she constantly tripped over them. "What happened to you?" she asked softly.

Letha gave her a look so lacking in emotion it stunned Elsa. Letha had never vouched for the 'conceal, don't feel,' she had never been able or willing to hide her emotions. And yet now, there was absolutely nothing in her face, in her eyes. It was as if she were carved of marble... carved of ice. "A lot of things happened to me," she said quietly, flatly, and stared at her ice fortress, broken and unbalanced.

Anna piped up again, from behind Elsa. "We know what's making you do this," she said. "I mean, what's making you be all..." She waved her hands vaguely in the air. "I don't know, different. Icy."  
Letha eyed her. "I know exactly what has caused my... change of heart," she said, a smile that gave even Elsa chills spreading across her features.

Anna frowned. "Wait – but – how -"

"The Snow Queen's final curse," Letha said, ignoring her younger sister. "I know the story."

Anna smiled, relieved, not quite catching the cold taint to the words. "Oh, good! Then we can -"

"Anna," Elsa interrupted her, warning, as Letha turned around and laughed.

"Oh, you don't get it. Everything makes sense now!"

"Wait, what?" Anna asked, taken aback.

Letha chuckled. "All my life, I was never able to control my magic. And not like Elsa – no, I couldn't even summon it. It didn't respond to me, just stayed holed up inside of me. And then one day I found a book in the library. It told me the story of the Snow Queen, the real story, and it explained a lot. I have the key to controlling my powers now. Thanks to this curse, I have real power! The kind I never would have had if I'd been the _good girl_ and stayed at home." She glared at Elsa, tone growing darker with every word. Elsa stared at her, unable to comprehend. "Do you think I've been tormenting the people for nothing? Scaring your poor, dumb counselors out of their wits for fun? No. I've been drawing every drop of fear out of them, every last bit of terror in the face of the unknown. And do you know why?"

"No," Elsa whispered, finally understanding.

"Yes," Letha snarled. "Because my powers are the opposite of yours, in a way. Yours react to your emotions, but mine react to the emotions of others. You lose control when you're afraid of your own magic. So I gain control..."

"...when others are afraid of you," Elsa finished, only half realizing she was speaking out loud.

"Yes," Letha agreed. "We're two halves of a whole, Elsa. You got the positive side... and, as always, I got the short end of the stick." She tilted her head, eyes flitting away from Elsa. "You're afraid of me."

"What? What makes you think I'm scared of you?" Anna asked, almost sounding offended.

Letha shook her head, eyes narrowed. "Oh, no. Not you, _sister_."

"But -" Anna turned to look at Kristoff.

"I'm not afraid of you," he protested, but Letha laughed, a sharp sound.

"Oh, yes, you are," she assured him. "You know how I know?"

Her hands sparked blue. Elsa took a step backward as ice flew from Letha's hands, spiking around them, wrapping them in a half circle of white ice. Anna stumbled from the shockwave, and Kristoff caught her. Even Elsa saw the fear flash on his face – Anna's too, though less of it.

Letha tipped her head back, and Elsa could almost see the power surge she was feeling – like a rush feels to an adrenaline junkie. Her eyes glowed for a split second, and she giggled – it was the giggle that worried Elsa; Letha had never giggled once in her life. "Oh, yes, you're scared half to death! I can feel it." She smiled a toothy smile, and Elsa's blood ran cold – pun intended. "It feeds me, it fuels me, it gives me what I never had. Well, not all of it." She raised a finger and pointed at Elsa, suddenly serious again. "Always came down to you, didn't it? The, quote, 'heir and the spare,' as it were? Elsa was always the heir, and Anna was everyone's favorite, and I was just the _broken, defective_ sister who wouldn't be queen, wouldn't be fixed, wouldn't even be obedient!"

Elsa winced at the words, spat like poison at her. "No," she whispered, half to herself, remembering her father's words, overheard through a door – _defective, not normal, broken._ The twins had both heard, but they had reacted very differently.

Letha leered at her. "You're still not normal. Neither am I. We're the product of the Snow Queen's final curse – the product of bitter anger. We're made to destroy Arendelle. Rather... I am." She growled, a strange, unsettling sound. "Because we're twins. We each got half of it. And, just like the rest of my goddamn life, you snatched all the good things about this away from me. So _thanks,_ Elsa. Thanks for ruining my life. Again." She stopped abruptly, turning her face into the wind, looking toward Arendelle, eyes narrowed. The snow falling on Arendelle had intensified, and, impulsive as ever, Letha whipped one hand around in a swift arc, whipping the snowfall into a frenzy. The corner of her lips creased, her ring finger twitched the tiniest bit, straining for her magic. Some part of Elsa was amazed she could still recognize those tiny signs. Whatever the case, this had to stop. Elsa shouted, "Letha, no!"

Too late. Even as Elsa watched, her twin staggered from the drain, the effort it had taken her to intensify the storm pulling the strength from her limbs. Both Elsa and Anna took an instinctive step forward to help her, but she looked up, eyes shining, and they stepped back just as fast.

Elsa realized she knew what was so wrong with her sister.

But there was nothing she could do. Letha had gotten a burst of power for her trouble, and despite the fact that Elsa could see her hands shaking uncontrollably, she raised them anyway, threatening all three of them with her replenished magic when the queen took another step back, trying to silently push her companions back as well, away from the maddened Snow Queen. "Oh, no," she laughed, the sound brittle and cold. "You're not going anywhere. Not yet.

"You see, for years, I've lived in your shadow. The Crown Princess, the Queen. And now, they call you the Snow Queen. They're afraid of _you,_ not of me! They've forgotten I even exist! They call you Snow Queen... you may be queen of Arendelle, but the title of Snow Queen is _mine._ " Ice crackled at her fingertips, preparing to cast. "You can't take that from me again!"

Ice flew from her fingers.

It did not strike Elsa, as she'd expected.

Instead, faster than the young queen could react, it streaked toward Anna. Elsa screamed her name, but the ice didn't strike Anna either – it curled around her, encasing the girl in a cage of ice. Anna jumped forward, but too late; she struck the bars and slammed against them, trying in vain to break the bars.

Elsa screamed in rage, her body flooding with cold. Kristoff moved around behind her to go to work on the bars with his pick, but Letha saw him coming and froze the pick with a blast of ice. Unfortunately for her, that left her wide open to Elsa's attack.

Blue power shot from the queen's hand, spearing straight through Letha's chest.

Letha bent, stumbling back a step with a gasp. For a split second, Elsa was horrified at what she'd done. _You killed her!_ a voice inside her screamed. _Murderer! Monster!_ That had been a direct hit to Letha's heart... there was no way she could survive that. When Elsa had (accidentally) struck Anna like that, her heart had frozen... it had been fatal.

But it didn't last. Letha straightened again, slowly, a chuckle escaping her. Elsa's horror turned to shock as her sister raised her hands. _How... her heart..._

"A bit too late for that," she laughed, power glowing in her palms. _Too late?_ "You should have tried that seven years ago!"

There was no more time to process. Ice flashed, and Anna – ice cage and all – was yanked past Elsa, past Letha, with a yelp of surprise. The bars shattered at Letha's touch, shards of ice scattering across the snow, but before Anna could make a move to escape, Letha's fingers caught her jaw, holding her still with the silent threat of ice. "Oh, don't mock me," she purred as Elsa raised her hands to retaliate. "You wouldn't dare make a move against me... not while our _precious little sister_ is in my hands. One thought from me is all it would take to seal her throat shut, dooming _her_ to death by asphyxiation... and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. After all, you can't affect my ice, any more than I can affect yours."

Unfortunately, she was right, and all of them knew it. For a long moment, all was still save the wind whipping across the snow-covered peak. Anna's eyes met Elsa, and she mouthed one word silently: _Go._ Elsa shook her head, a tiny gesture that would have passed unnoticed by almost anyone, but she knew Letha saw it by the knowing smile on her face. Still, her twin made no move to interrupt the silent argument.

Elsa knew, logically, that there was no reason for Letha to harm Anna while Elsa wasn't there to bargain with. But she also had no idea why Letha was doing this in the first place, so she was rather reluctant to leave her with that kind of power. There was also the fact that Anna was her sister, the thing she loved most in the world – and Letha knew it.

"Feel free to come back and try again later," Letha purred, clearly knowing exactly what was going through Elsa's mind. "I'll just keep this for you, for _safekeeping._ " Her fingers tightened on Anna's throat, eliciting a squeak of protest at the frigid touch. The small sound made Elsa's heart clench, fingers curling into fists, but she resisted the urge to do something stupid like attack Letha. That would only provoke her. She held all the power, and both of them knew it. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I let Anna come in the first place?_

"What do you want from me?" Elsa asked between gritted teeth.

Letha snorted in amusement. "Come now, you're smarter than that, _Elsa._ " She stretched the name scornfully. "I'm sure you can figure it out all on your own. Now get off my mountain, before I lose my patience."

Elsa took a step back, hands coming up in a placating gesture, but Letha tightened her grip on Anna, intentionally "mistaking" it for a threat, and Elsa took the hint, lowering her hands again. She could see Anna's skin turning pale – from the pressure or the cold, she wasn't sure – where Letha touched her, and didn't want to press the issue. Not now. "If one hair on her head is harmed, Letha -"

"You'll gut me like a fish and rip my little cold, black heart out, I know," she agreed. "She won't be harmed. So long as you don't provoke me."

Elsa beckoned Kristoff, who came away reluctantly. "I will come back for you," she promised.

Anna might have nodded, if the movement wouldn't have caused Letha's cold fingers to dig into her throat harder. "I know you will," she said, and her unwavering confidence shook Elsa. It surprised Letha as well – Elsa could see it in the swift dart of her twin's icy eyes between the two of them. "Hopefully, you know, before I freeze to death."

She said it in an almost joking manner, but it made Elsa's throat close up and she could only nod, turn, and drop down the side of the cliff, landing six feet or so below line of sight. The impact barely made a difference; over eight feet of snow made sure of that, despite the fact that Elsa didn't sink into the snow more than a couple of inches. Kristoff was not so lucky; he became buried up to his armpits and it took him a few seconds to free himself and get on top of the snow with her. Even so, he still sank up to his knees, forcing him to look up at the shorter woman. "Now what?"

"Now," she said, and the dark strength of her own voice surprised her, "we go back to Arendelle, and we make a plan to get my sister back."

He nodded, and the two set off to get back to where they'd left Sven.

* * *

 **Dun-dun-dun. Again. {Yay for dramatic chapter endings.} Yes.**

 **I'm not entirely happy with the end of that; it feels abrupt to me. What do you guys think? (Maybe I'm just being overcritical, but I can't figure out how to fix it.)**

 **Reviews, please! Thank you for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

**I can't remember how long it's been since I've updated. Not too terribly long, I don't think, but oh well.**

 **Before I get into the review replies, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news: my writing's getting better in these few chapters. The bad news: You're catching up to what I have pre-written, and soon I'll be racing to keep up, which is never good for update rates XD I'll try to stay ahead, but my Muse and I have hit a roadblock and we're arguing over what to do next. On the kind-of-bright side, we've hit performances of the play, so soon I'll have actual free time on my hands again. Yay! So I should be able to catch up and stay ahead of the game again.**

 **With that said:**

 **Letting it Go: Poor Anna, indeed, and I'm afraid the near future isn't looking too good for her. I'm glad you like the fact that I'm kind of keeping her specific motives under the table for the moment.**

 **Elsa Tomago: First question: You'll have to see. Second/third questions: Probably because Letha would likely have impaled Anna if Elsa had stuck around any longer. Also because Letha just stirred up a blizzard, and Elsa has a bit of explaining to do to her people. Arendelle is one of her primary concerns - second only to Anna.  
**

 **Shadowfax321: Perspective is everything. I'll leave it at that for now.**

 **Gingersnaps: Love ya, ex-Florence XD Thank you for not interrupting rehearsal to chastise me. (I seem to be getting slapped a lot lately for my stories XD)**

 **Fenix Fireblaze: Why, thank you, dahling! XD**

 **Word count: 3,105**

* * *

"You know, I wasn't completely kidding about f-freezing to death," Anna noted through chattering teeth.

"And I wasn't joking about sealing your throat up with ice," Letha grumbled.

"You won't do that. Elsa would k-kill you." Despite her thick layers of winter clothing, even inside the fortress and out of the wind, Anna was still shivering.

"Maybe I'm not scared of _Elsa._ " She stalked from one end of the room to the other, fiddling with something between her hands. "She's not the only one with powers. And she can't hurt me with hers. Not anymore."

"I saw that," Anna said softly, wrapping her cloak tighter around her as she sat on the floor, knees curled up to her chest in a huddled attempt to save warmth. "How did you do that? When she struck me... she killed me. I died. Froze solid, literally."

Letha turned back to her, eyes narrowed. "Elsa struck you?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I mean, it was an accident, but -"

"And you say you _died?_ I don't understand."

Anna tried to ignore her rising excitement. This was the Letha she remembered, always wanting to know more, to understand her world. "Yeah. She froze my heart, so I froze to death, but right before I froze completely, there was this guy, Hans, my ex-fiance, real jerkface, who tried to kill her, so I had to save her, and it was an act of true love, which is the only thing that can thaw a frozen heart, so -"

"So you thawed out of your little ice cube and lived. Happily ever after, the end." Letha turned away again, losing interest, distracted.

Anna, however, caught a glimpse of something in her hand, and asked curiously, "What's that in your hand?"

Letha closed her fingers around it. "None of your business," she snapped, in a fierce way that made Anna think it probably _was_ her business, but Letha wasn't about to admit that. She dropped the subject.

"Okay." She shivered. "So why weren't you affected by Elsa's magic?"

Letha shrugged, back turned to her. "Must be a side effect of the Snow Queen thing."

Anna didn't buy that for a minute. She was lying. Letha knew exactly why she hadn't been affected by Elsa's magic. "I don't think that's it."

A single pale blue eye glowed at her, such an eerie effect it took Anna a second to realize it was a trick of the light, a single ray of sunlight making its way through a hole in the ice and striking exactly the right spot. "Don't you, now?"

"No," she said, deciding to ignore the grammatical issues with that exchange. "And I think you know exactly what made it happen that way."

White-blue eyes locked with teal ones, and Anna raised her eyebrows in a challenge. Letha balled her hands into fists, and Anna knew she was right. "Maybe I do. Maybe I don't."

Anna shivered again, trying to control the shaking as Letha turned away again. "It really is cold," she said softly.

Letha didn't turn around, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I wouldn't know."

"No, I guess you wouldn't." She shrugged. "But Elsa's going to be rather upset with you if you send me back with frostbite."

Letha laughed. "Send you back? Whatever makes you think I'm going to send you back?"

Anna frowned. "Wasn't that the whole deal? I mean, Elsa gives you what you want, and you send me back to Arendelle?"

"Oh, yes, that was the deal." She stared down at whatever was in her hand – Anna craned her neck to see, but failed – and finished, "But no one ever said the Snow Queen plays fair."

* * *

Elsa led with, "I think I know why Letha's so... different."

"Hm, power-hungry tyrant who's never been able to control her magic, can now control her magic but has to terrorize the general populace to do so? She hasn't always been this way?"

She glared, and Kristoff subsided. "Sorry."

"That's my sister you're talking about. Try to remember that," she sighed. "Sadly, your very first adjective was quite close."

He ticked back through the list. "Power-hungry?"

Elsa nodded. "Only I think it's more than that. Letha's never had power in her life. Now she has access to it, lots of it, and it's making her go crazy. It's more than just wanting more. She _needs_ more. She can never have enough. Did you see her after she whipped up the storm around Arendelle?"

He considered that. "Surge of power, glowing eyes, creepy laugh? That?"

The queen shook her head. "No. You're missing the point. She stumbled, almost fell over from the drain on her strength. She was shaking like a leaf afterward. She almost passed out, I could see it. But she didn't seem to care. All she cared about was the surge of magical power she got from it, even though her physical strength crashed." She hesitated. "Kristoff... I think she's addicted to her own magic."

The ice harvester thought about that for a few seconds, then swore under his breath. "You're right. I've seen addicts before – I mean, never to magic, but to, um, other things – and after a certain point, nothing matters but the high they get from it. They'll do anything, give anything, to get more, no matter what kind of toll it takes on them and their families. But can you really get addicted to _magic?_ "

"I've seen people addicted to power before," she said grimly. "'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' It somehow does not surprise me that Letha has succumbed to it as well. Just in a different form."

She turned and paced back across the room again, not noticing the trail of frost she left in her wake. Kristoff stood, but made no move to stop her. "Arendelle needs to know," he said.

"No," she responded immediately. He raised his eyebrows at her, and she explained herself. "It will only make them more afraid, and that will make Letha stronger."

"As opposed to them thinking their queen is losing it again?" he asked. "They're going to demand answers, soon. They're probably demanding them now. You can't fight on two fronts, Elsa. If Arendelle turns on you, it will be game over."

"Checkmate," she murmured, heart sinking as she realized he was right. She shook her head. "You're smarter than you make yourself out to be, you know that?" Elsa sighed. "I'll figure out what to say... and then we're going to get Anna back."

* * *

A sharp laugh pierced the air. Letha swept into view, carrying between her hands a globe of ice. Anna looked up from drawing pictures in the thin layer of snow covering the floor of the castle with her forefinger, bored out of her mind. "Care to see what _Snow Queen_ Elsa is doing down in Arendelle?" she asked, cynical amusement glimmering in her eyes. She knelt, sitting on the floor beside Anna. She leaned casually against the ice bars between them, not at all bothered by the frigid surface against the bare skin of her forearm as she showed Anna the sphere of ice.

Anna realized that the Snow Queen was easily within reach of the knife hidden in the folds of the princess's dress.

A few years ago, when Anna turned sixteen, she had been given a dagger by her father, told to keep it with her at all times, hidden in a special pocket that had been sewn into all her dresses from then on. It was completely invisible to the world, but within easy reach of the princess. Even if Anna's hands were to be tied behind her back, she could, with a little stretching, reach the blade if necessary, not that Anna had ever expected to have to use it. No one else but Elsa, Gerda, Kai, and Kristoff knew she carried it. Not even Letha, to the best of Anna's knowledge. So now Letha was leaning against the bars between them, her arms extended to hold the ball of ice... her entire side exposed, unprotected, close enough for Anna to whip out the knife and slide it between Letha's ribs before the Snow Queen could possibly react.

But she knew, an instant after the thought occurred to her, that she would not. She couldn't. Despite everything, Letha was her sister. She was family. Anna didn't give up on family. It shook her that it had even occurred to her to kill Letha. To kill her _sister._

Letha was speaking again, and Anna's attention was drawn to the ice in her hands. "It took me years to do this, but it was worth it, don't you think?"

"Holy..." Anna whispered, staring at the ice. Within the sphere, there were images moving, people, people in a very familiar place. "Arendelle." _And it's_ snowing _._

Letha nodded smugly, but Anna wasn't paying attention. "Is th-that actually happening?" she stuttered through chattering teeth.

"You've got it," Letha agreed. "And, oh, look. There's the _queen_ now." She narrowed her eyes, maybe in annoyance, maybe just in concentration.

Anna watched with fascination as the scene solidified, colors brightening, gaining definition and focus. After a second, she realized she could hear the crowd murmuring, too, catch scattered voices, wondering what this was about, why the queen had called them here, where the princess was. They quieted as Elsa – Elsa! – came forward to stand on the platform above them. Elsa took a deep breath and began to speak, and both Anna and Letha listened intently.

"People of Arendelle," Elsa began. "I know you've all been wondering about a lot of things, not the least of which being the weather of late. Most of you have figured out by now that it is not entirely natural." Murmurs spread throughout the crowd, but she raised a hand for silence. "Please, let me finish. Some of you have doubtlessly, and understandably, come to the conclusion that this early, harsh winter is caused by my magic spiraling out of control." She took a breath, as if bracing herself. "I swear to you on my crown, on my throne, and on my life that this is not my doing. And I understand that an explanation is in order.

"All of you should know about this, but as she is no longer spoken of, it would seem some have forgotten the fact that Anna and I had a third sister, my twin. Her name was... her name is Letha."

Letha let out a small, incredulous noise, not quite a laugh. "What _is_ she doing?"

In the ice, Elsa continued. "A few weeks before we turned sixteen, the word was spread that she had fallen ill, and that the illness had been fatal. That was not true.

"The truth is, Letha is still alive. She ran away just before we turned sixteen, fled the castle and, as far as we know, the kingdom, and vanished. The search parties King Agdar sent out failed to find her. The king did not want to admit that one of his daughters had run away; he was proud, and convinced that she would not return, and so the official story was that she had fallen ill and died." Elsa paused, then continued. "One other part of the story was never told. My twin sister also has ice magic, like mine."

The temperature in the room dropped even further, and Anna shivered. Letha shivered as well, but it was not from the cold. Her eyes shone as she stared at the figure of Elsa in the ice. The queen continued, oblivious to the fact that her sisters were watching from afar. "From the time we were small, Letha could never control her magic. She could never summon it. It appears that now that has changed."

"Your sister is playing right into my hands," Letha said incredulously.

" _Our_ sister," Anna corrected her, and Letha fell quiet again, as if unsure what to say to that.

"Princess Anna and I traveled up the North Mountain, where we suspected our forgotten sister was staying, and found her at the summit. We found her there, in a castle of ice, but she was not herself. This winter is her doing."

The crowd erupted in chaos. Anna didn't need magic to sense their fear. Letha tipped her head back, drinking in the fear, the panic, lips parting in ecstasy as their terror poured into her veins. Anna watched with a sort of horrified fascination as her older sister's eyes glowed, slitted half shut as the breath left her lungs, returning in something halfway between breathless laughing and sobbing, the rush from Arendelle's panic bringing her the bliss only an addict can have, and Anna began to understand just how badly Letha was caught in her own web.

Elsa's voice shouting over the clamor from the ice sphere brought Anna's attention back to the scene within. "Please, listen to me!" she shouted, making herself heard over the noise only by way of her exceptionally strong voice. At last, she managed to get the crowd to quiet down. "Listen! Letha is still not fully in control of her own magic. She still struggles to summon it. But we know now what gives her strength, what gives her control: fear. Other peoples' fear feeds her. _Your_ fear feeds her. She is weak, because her magic depends on others. Do not fear her. She has a castle of ice, it is true, but it is broken, splintered, its walls held up by desperate, failing efforts to keep them there. This winter is her doing, yes, but it is no snowstorm, no blizzard, and we can keep it that way. Letha is not to be feared. Fearing her only gives her power."

"Where's the princess?" someone shouted, which seemed to Anna a rather random question to ask just then.

Elsa hesitated. "With Letha," she admitted, and the crowd buzzed again, voices crying out in distress. "She'll be returning soon," Elsa hurried to add. "Despite my attempts to convince her otherwise, she believes Letha can be reasoned with."

Letha turned on Anna, a frighteningly fierce expression on her face. "Is that true?" she hissed, but it was half laugh; she was still giddy from the power surge she had received.

"Half of it," Anna answered carefully. She recognized what her sister was doing – making the situation sound better than it was. She wasn't lying, per se – if Elsa had anything to say about it, Anna _would_ be returning soon, and her words on Anna's opinions were completely accurate – but rather, omitting parts of the truth in an effort to avoid sowing panic.

Letha had obviously come to the same conclusion; she scoffed as her twin continued.

"As I said – please, try to remain calm," Elsa pleaded. "I will personally do my best to make sure that my sister will not harm you, or Princess Anna. This will be resolved. And I promise you that this is the only secret the last king kept from you, in an attempt to avoid causing unrest and fear."

Letha let out a half laugh, as if unsure she'd heard Elsa right. "Fool," she crowed, the sphere of ice clearing to glassy transparency as she stood, even though Elsa clearly wasn't finished. "She doesn't know what she's gotten herself into. She's only made them more fearful, lost their trust, made m-" She broke off abruptly, distracted from her rant, brow furrowed in almost childlike confusion. "What... is that?"

"What is -" Anna followed the Snow Queen's gaze down to the thin layer of snow at her feet. Lines in the snow, drawn by Anna's bored fingers, traced out tiny figures. The princess was no artist; she had no patience for it, but the shapes were clear enough: snowmen, big hills, sleds, skates, dolls, and over and over, the same three little girls, drawn with childish simplicity. One with one braid, one with two, and one with her hair loose, all three of them smiling and laughing and playing in every scene. "Oh. That. I don't know. I was bored... thinking, I guess. It's us, see? When we were little. Before my memories were taken away." Letha was silent, still, troubled, confused, even Anna could see that much. "We were happy," she added gently. "Remember? Even you, most of the time. Do you remember those dolls? We had so much fun with them. Gerda made them to look like us."

Letha stared down at the simple little drawings, almost as if she was trying to remember something. Anna petered off into silence, watching her, hoping for a positive reaction – any reaction, really. What she got, after several minutes of Letha seeming to have a silent argument with herself, was an abrupt and unexplained, "There were never any sleds," before the Snow Queen turned and moved away, quickly, hurrying, almost running.

"Letha?"

She stopped at the doorway, but didn't turn around.

"It really is cold."

A second went by. Two. Five. Both of them remained perfectly still, unmoving.

Letha vanished out the door, up the stairs, out of sight.

Anna sighed, slumping back in defeat. To her surprise, her back came up against something soft – cold, but soft. She turned around to find an enormous mound of snow taking up almost half her cell, which most certainly had not been there before. Confusion lined her face for a moment, and an old memory resurfaced suddenly.

 _"_ _See, Anna?" the little girl said with a triumphant grin, without a trace of darkness in her hair. "It_ can _make you warm, if you wait long enough."_

Almost as if in a trance, Anna set to work, packing the snow as she dug into it, making herself a small cave with a smaller opening, built like Elsa, with her love of architecture and geometry, had taught her, so that it wouldn't fall down on top of her. She crawled inside and within minutes, she could feel her fingers and toes again. She sighed happily, her courage renewed by the tiny act of kindness.

There was hope yet. She could feel it.

* * *

 **Perhaps there's hope. Perhaps Anna's just foolishly optimistic. We'll see next chapter, won't we?**

 **Reviews, please! Thank you for reading, and I'll see y'all next time. ;3**


	8. Chapter 8

**So, I've been bad, and I've hit an absolute block with literally everything I am trying to write, on-site and off, and I'm so sorry to every single one of my readers for having to put up with me. I have been trying to write more on this chapter - going back to Elsa, to be specific - but it isn't happening and it's already been too long since I've updated. So, I'm extremely sorry, and here's your pitifully short chapter to try to give some sort of compensation. I'm going to warn you all right now that I have no idea how long it will be before I have anything worth posting again. I'm currently trying to force-write my way through this, but it isn't working. (This is why I should only post one-shots... hehe.) There are one-shots coming, probably, which I swear on the River Styx have nothing to do with the length of time it's taking me to update.  
**

 **Fenix Fireblaze: Eh, I'm not sure if it was a good plot decision or not... but we'll see.**

 **MantaI-305Apollo'sChariot: Thank you. I think I'm good at making people feel bad for my villain-types. x3 And Anna's thought was really an instant in time, but obviously it takes longer to read (or write). Ha... yeah I may end up needing some help with the speech that's coming next chapter...**

 **Shadowfax321: You and me both.**

 **Elsa Tomago: We shall see.**

 **GoldenHydrangea: Yes, I swear I will... eventually... thanks, anyway XD**

 **Word Count: 815**

* * *

What _was that?_ part of her demanded.

 _It doesn't matter,_ Letha grumbled silently, but she knew that wouldn't be the end of it.

 _You're going soft,_ the voice accused. _It would have been fine. It's not cold enough to kill in here._

 _How would you know?_ Letha snapped. _I have no idea what cold feels like._

 _No, but we both know that out of the wind, in layers like it's wrapped in, it would survive for a few days._

Letha decided she wasn't going to win this argument. It didn't matter, anyway. Nothing really mattered. _Keep saying that,_ the little voice sneered, hearing her thoughts like always. _Maybe you'll start to believe it._

"I do believe it," she snapped out loud. "You know I do. A frozen heart kind of does that to you." She turned around, settling her orb of ice back into its place carefully. With a deep breath, she added, "And what happens when she starts complaining about hunger and thirst? Unlike us, she can't survive on sheer cold."

 _Meltwater,_ the voice suggested. _With your inexperienced ignorance, 'Snow Queen' –_ it was said in such a mocking tone that Letha flinched – _there's no aura of Winter's power around this place anymore. This ice isn't ever-cold. As for hunger, humans can live a few days without food. Why does it matter so much to you? It's not some pet of yours._

Letha made no comment on that, forcing her thoughts to silence. She realized she was pacing the floor, but didn't care enough to stop. Much to her annoyance, the voice in her head was, as usual, right about one thing. "Winter's power will return," she muttered quietly. "I'll make sure of it."

 _You'll make sure of it,_ the voice mocked her. _You've been saying that for almost six years now. And where is my Winter?_

"Elsa almost did it," she murmured, staring through a pane of transparent ice. "But Anna ruined it."

 _She is weak,_ the voice agreed. _Caught in the trap of 'true love.' Foolish girl. There is no love for the Snow Queen, and there never was._

Letha snarled, frost coating her fingers as they clenched into fists. "Don't call her that! She's _not_ the Snow Queen! She'll never be the Snow Queen!"

 _Not yet. But you forget she bears a part of my curse too. And she is certainly more of a queen than you._

"Shut up!" she snapped, unaware that her voice was carrying downstairs. "You chose me!"

 _I did no such thing._ Letha growled and whirled away, but she could not escape a voice inside her own head. _It was pure chance which sister's heart froze first. You were simply the lucky one. Or, perhaps, the unlucky one._

Letha ran her hands through her hair, black as night, a constant reminder of how this whole nightmare had started. Then she stopped, something the voice had said ringing clear. "First?" A questioning feeling, not enough to bother being put into words. "You said, 'which sister's heart froze first.' What do you mean, first?"

 _Ah, that._

"Don't you 'ah, that' me. Answer the question."

Pain spiked through her temples, and she snarled silently as cold anger seeped through the pain, blending with her own emotions even as she fought it, subduing her in seconds. _You forget who is in charge here,_ the warning tone rang through her mind, causing the headache to intensify. _You know very well what I mean when I say first. For one with the curse, it is_ always _possible for the heart to freeze. Do not forget your place, child of Winter._

"Fine," Letha ground out between her teeth. "I don't want to argue with you. We have work to do, and my emotions are only getting in the way."

 _An intelligent decision, for once._

Letha let out a breath as her headache faded and closed her eyes, feeling cold flood her body, not caring a whit. Her anger, her frustration, her pain faded, all whisked away, buried deep beneath a layer of ice, until she didn't feel them anymore. Until she felt nothing but the cold. She welcomed the release, welcomed the Winter, invited them in, until there was nothing left. She was the mountain. She was the snow. She was the storm.

The Snow Queen opened her eyes again, hard as stone, cold as fear, and began planning.

Anna frowned. It sounded almost as if Letha were talking to someone up there, but her ice was opaque white, not like Elsa's transparent blue, and it was impossible to see anything up the stairs from where Anna was situated. She could only wonder at the fact that she heard only one voice, and that intermittently – but never so much as a hint of the sound of whoever Letha was talking to.

 _Who chose you, Letha? And, more importantly... what did they choose you for?_

* * *

 **Much sorry for slow update. Please no kill author. Author does not update if dead. Wi-fi sucks in the Underworld.**

 **Reviews, please? Thank you for reading, thank you infinitely much for your patience, and I'll see y'all next time. Eventually. Hopefully soon. Probably not.**


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